Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

It is perfectly OK to only code at work, you can have a life too

zeroequalsfalse.press

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 105 posts

Re: It is perfectly OK to only code at work, you can have a life too

#31

Post by huffmsa »

arkades wrote: post #27
huffmsa wrote: post #18

Does a lawyer do law outside of billable hours? Some do pro-bono. But not the majority. Does a doctor practice medicine outside of his hours? Again, some work at free clinics, but generally no. Do veterinarians like it when you ask them to take a look at your cat when they're not in clinic? No. Almost always no. Work is work, leisure is leisure. If coding is leisure for you, that's great.

> Does a doctor practice medicine outside of his hours? Again, some work at free clinics, but generally no. Constantly. Besides being on formal call, there are informal consults texted or called in constantly, plus emergencies, plus friends-and-family consults. Plus paperwork for the patients you’ve seen very often takes longer than your “official” hours. And keeping up to date on the relevant literature is not somet…

All of that sounds like overtime. Still the same job.

How many docs are working on side projects in their free time?

Re: It is perfectly OK to only code at work, you can have a life too

#32

Post by soneca »

fuball63 wrote: post #24

Semi related to this, if you do code after work (because you enjoy it), it's OK to code without it being a "startup". I often get bogged down with "how do I monetize, market, and maintain this", which just kills my motivation. Just because something isn't marketed and monetized doesn't make it invalid; outside of work coding has brought me numerous benefits: - Learning new things. Not because I feel like if I don't I…

I think this happens because the term "side-project" has a lot of possible interpretations:

- Hobby project to play with some tech just because you find interesting

- Hobby project to play with some tech that might help your career in the future

- Homework project to learn about the tech you currently use at work

- For-profit project to hopefully earn some extra money

- For-profit project to hopefully earn enough money to allow you to quit your day job (my case now)

- Portfolio-making projects to show at job-interviews as a junior developer (my case a couple of years ago)

All of them seems legit if your decision to do them is personal. But some of them might be prone to abuse by employers

Re: It is perfectly OK to only code at work, you can have a life too

#33

Post by suff »

So what happens when your company's roadmap consists of technical slop and they won't pay you to learn things like differentiable programming? Do you think they're going to pay you to write Vue.js until you retire?

This strategy might work for a few years, but is a long-term career hazard. You are in charge of raising your own bar.

Re: It is perfectly OK to only code at work, you can have a life too

#35

Post by hatchnyc »

huffmsa wrote: post #18

Does a lawyer do law outside of billable hours? Some do pro-bono. But not the majority. Does a doctor practice medicine outside of his hours? Again, some work at free clinics, but generally no. Do veterinarians like it when you ask them to take a look at your cat when they're not in clinic? No. Almost always no. Work is work, leisure is leisure. If coding is leisure for you, that's great.

Many of my friends ended up becoming doctors, PAs, or nurses and medicine is basically all they talk about, especially the doctors. Their phones are overflowing with medical photos and articles. Get two or more of them together and you're not going to discuss anything besides their field. One volunteers for some Doctors Without Boarders type organization, another teaches classes at a university, I think they almost all do some ad hoc volunteer work from time to time.

I think in most fields the top performers are going to be investing significant effort outside work to practice, learn, and improve themselves throughout their career. Coding is a little bit unique compared to certain professions because it can be done alone and without incurring much additional cost.

Re: It is perfectly OK to only code at work, you can have a life too

#36

Post by dragonwriter »

huffmsa wrote: post #18

Does a lawyer do law outside of billable hours? Some do pro-bono. But not the majority. Does a doctor practice medicine outside of his hours? Again, some work at free clinics, but generally no. Do veterinarians like it when you ask them to take a look at your cat when they're not in clinic? No. Almost always no. Work is work, leisure is leisure. If coding is leisure for you, that's great.

> Does a lawyer do law outside of billable hours?

Yes, all of them study law outside of work clients pay them to do; in fact, they are required to do so as a condition of licensing, it's called continuing education requirement.

The same is true of virtually all licensed professionals.

Programmers aren't licensed professionals, so they don't have a licensing requirement for continuing education. But the programmers that are professionals, even if not licensed are doing continuing education anyway, and hands-on projects that aren't for paying clients is frequently a big part of that.

(Now, professionals with good employers will often be paid to do continuing education on work time, and that's true of programmers, too. If you have 20% time, your continuing education projects may not be “side projects”.)

Re: It is perfectly OK to only code at work, you can have a life too

#37

Post by huffmsa »

hatchnyc wrote: post #35
huffmsa wrote: post #18

Does a lawyer do law outside of billable hours? Some do pro-bono. But not the majority. Does a doctor practice medicine outside of his hours? Again, some work at free clinics, but generally no. Do veterinarians like it when you ask them to take a look at your cat when they're not in clinic? No. Almost always no. Work is work, leisure is leisure. If coding is leisure for you, that's great.

Many of my friends ended up becoming doctors, PAs, or nurses and medicine is basically all they talk about, especially the doctors. Their phones are overflowing with medical photos and articles. Get two or more of them together and you're not going to discuss anything besides their field. One volunteers for some Doctors Without Boarders type organization, another teaches classes at a university, I think they almost a…

> I think in most fields the top performers are going to be investing significant effort outside work to practice, learn, and improve themselves throughout their career.

Agreed. I spend a lot of free time reading about and discussing technology. Occasionally teach, occasionally do some advising.

But I rarely have a side project which consumes my time. I guess the equivalent would be a nurse going and taking a shift at another hospital.

Re: It is perfectly OK to only code at work, you can have a life too

#38

Post by anotherthro313 »

In a somewhat related arena, Dries Buytaert from Drupal has some great arguments on how being able to contribute to open source is a privilege, and you could extrapolate that it is sort of discrimination to turn down job applicants who haven't contributed to major projects.

https://www.drupal.org/blog/the-privilege-of-free-time-in-op...

Re: It is perfectly OK to only code at work, you can have a life too

#39

Post by ska »

suff wrote: post #33

So what happens when your company's roadmap consists of technical slop and they won't pay you to learn things like differentiable programming? Do you think they're going to pay you to write Vue.js until you retire? This strategy might work for a few years, but is a long-term career hazard. You are in charge of raising your own bar.

Honestly, this is a good reason to consider a job change. You can learn new/other tech on your own, sure... but not nearly as efficiently as you can in-situ.

Besides, the tech itself is rarely the limiting factor.

Re: It is perfectly OK to only code at work, you can have a life too

#40

Post by huffmsa »

dragonwriter wrote: post #36
huffmsa wrote: post #18

Does a lawyer do law outside of billable hours? Some do pro-bono. But not the majority. Does a doctor practice medicine outside of his hours? Again, some work at free clinics, but generally no. Do veterinarians like it when you ask them to take a look at your cat when they're not in clinic? No. Almost always no. Work is work, leisure is leisure. If coding is leisure for you, that's great.

> Does a lawyer do law outside of billable hours? Yes, all of them study law outside of work clients pay them to do; in fact, they are required to do so as a condition of licensing , it's called continuing education requirement. The same is true of virtually all licensed professionals. Programmers aren't licensed professionals, so they don't have a licensing requirement for continuing education. But the programmers t…

Studying law isn't practicing law.

Yes, all professionals should be reading and continuing their education. I read tons of technical publications. But I rarely commit code.

But working full-stress cases outside of your actual work? Sounds like a good way to burn out.

Post reply on HN