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It's okay to code on nights and weekends

tej.as

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Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends

#21

Post by neither_color »

x0xrx wrote: post #3

A lot of people that are in tech because it’s a good job got pressured to make it their life. They reasonably pushed back, but the upshot was those of us that are passionate about programming as a hobby got pressured to not do it for fun. Both things are unreasonable. You shouldn’t have to program for fun to get a job. You can be good at it as a profession only. You also should be allowed to love it as a vocation or…

I'm in a non-tech job and I never quite got into a tech "career" but I've built my own tools that no SAAS offers and I spend some of my free time tweaking them and I feel proud the more I use them. Everyone in society benefits from a little DIY tech literacy, even those of us not FAANG caliber.

Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends

#22

Post by treve »

boh wrote: post #7
threatofrain wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a hypothetical employer, should I be allowed to select for people who love programming because my internal metrics say they're an awesome fit? If so, then that's where the fundamental pressure is going to come from. So we can be on HN and sing "Oh, you do you!" but that won't relieve the fundamental source of pressure.

You can hypothetically do whatever you want, no one in the real world is hiring you because you "love programming".

I work at a small company and I do try select for people that create because of internal drive. It doesn't strictly have to be programming, but it tends to be. I agree not every company needs this. It could even be a negative for some type of work.

Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends

#23

Post by PittleyDunkin »

knallfrosch wrote: post #15
hnuser123456 wrote: post #6

I have a non-coding day job and spend most of my time thinking about how to improve my projects when I get home, then code late into the night. Trying to get hired as a programmer somewhere, but part of me also worries it might exhaust me from coding on my own projects. If only I had enough spare time to build something worth monetizing while being able to pay the bills...

When working on useful projects with autonomy for money, you're not really losing out.

> When working on useful projects with autonomy for money, you're not really losing out.

You are if you're only making salary.

Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends

#24

Post by brokencode »

x0xrx wrote: post #3

A lot of people that are in tech because it’s a good job got pressured to make it their life. They reasonably pushed back, but the upshot was those of us that are passionate about programming as a hobby got pressured to not do it for fun. Both things are unreasonable. You shouldn’t have to program for fun to get a job. You can be good at it as a profession only. You also should be allowed to love it as a vocation or…

Personally, I avoid all side projects at home because they turn into a huge distraction for me at work. It’s hard for me not to think about them all day.

So the whole “program for fun to get a job” thing has always felt pretty dumb to me. Companies should only care about what I get done at work. What I do at home is my business.

Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends

#25

Post by bee_rider »

x0xrx wrote: post #3

A lot of people that are in tech because it’s a good job got pressured to make it their life. They reasonably pushed back, but the upshot was those of us that are passionate about programming as a hobby got pressured to not do it for fun. Both things are unreasonable. You shouldn’t have to program for fun to get a job. You can be good at it as a profession only. You also should be allowed to love it as a vocation or…

I think there is some anxiety on the part of people who love code, and find the computer to be a little magic almost-thinking box that is one of the most interesting things humans have ever invented, that the boring careerists will take all the fun out of it. Somebody is willing to pay us to play with the magic box, but now these other folks have come along and they don’t even seem to enjoy the game? WTF, go away if you don’t actually like it!

But then I put on my grown-up hat and realize that there really are customer needs to be satisfied, the less enthralled do real work, and they have as much right as the rest of us get a paycheck.

Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends

#27

Post by not2b »

It's not wrong to code on nights and weekends if you like it. But there's also something to be said for developing other interests, that put your brain in a different space. You might even find that it can help with the coding. In my case, I enjoy coding and I also love hiking, and often find that when I'm stuck, an idea that gets me unstuck occurs to me when I'm out in the woods and nowhere near a computer.

Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends

#28

Post by firgil »

Apreche wrote: post #14
x0xrx wrote: post #3

A lot of people that are in tech because it’s a good job got pressured to make it their life. They reasonably pushed back, but the upshot was those of us that are passionate about programming as a hobby got pressured to not do it for fun. Both things are unreasonable. You shouldn’t have to program for fun to get a job. You can be good at it as a profession only. You also should be allowed to love it as a vocation or…

90% agree. Someone is a sucker if they work for their employer during their personal time. If someone wants to code for their employer by day and code for themselves by night, that’s great. I just hope they get enough sleep.

That assumes the world is zero-sum. If my employer has a code base that I find more enjoyable / fascinating than any of my side projects, maybe the employer does get extra out of me from me putting in extra hours, but I also get more out of him by both delivering what's expected of me and getting to toy around in a code base that I find fun. I might even be improving my earning potential (if the "fun" argument isn't good enough for you) by building skills working on that production code base that I wouldn't by just messing around on side projects. The dynamic is obviously very open to abuse and people have to protect themselves from that, but I don't agree "extra hours = sucker" is universally true.

Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends

#29

Post by asdasdsddd »

boh wrote: post #7
threatofrain wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a hypothetical employer, should I be allowed to select for people who love programming because my internal metrics say they're an awesome fit? If so, then that's where the fundamental pressure is going to come from. So we can be on HN and sing "Oh, you do you!" but that won't relieve the fundamental source of pressure.

You can hypothetically do whatever you want, no one in the real world is hiring you because you "love programming".

That's definitely not true. The whole side project meme was a big thing a while back because employers were specifically looking for people who liked programming so much they do it on the side.

Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends

#30

Post by sibeliuss »

This whole article really resonates, especially the bits about expectations for others. My main problem is that, having done so much coding (too much), its easy to identify just how long something should take (on average), and so when I see something trivial dragging on and on at work, it instantly raises a lot of questions. This happens so much that I look around at the team with nothing less than the deepest skepticism about just what folks are being paid for.

It's hard for me to "let them be", but I have to, obviously. It creates a lot of internal tension that I can't figure out how to resolve.

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