Links between the personalities, styles and performance in computer programming

There are repetitive patterns in strategies of manipulating source code. For example, modifying source code before acquiring knowledge of how a code works is a depth-first style and reading and understanding before modifying source code is a breadth-first style. The objective of this study is to understand the influence of personality on programming styles. We did a correlational study with 65 programmers at the University of Stuttgart. We measured academic achievement, programming experience, attitude towards programming and five personality factors via a self-assessed survey. We assessed the programming styles in the survey or mined them from software repositories. Performance in programming was composed of defect-proneness of programmers which was mined from software repositories, the grades they got in a software project course and their estimate of their own programming ability. In the statistical analysis, we found that Openness to Experience has a positive association with breadth-first style and Conscientiousness has a positive association with depth-first style. We also found that in addition to having more programming experience and better academic achievement, the styles of working depth-first and saving coarse-grained revisions improve performance in programming.