The main reason not to code on evenings and weekends is that your employer will own everything you do and might not allow you to do whatever you want anyway.
Get a better contract I guess.
It's okay to code on nights and weekends
31–40 of 87 posts
Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends
#32I agree. I wrote about this recently [1]:
> There is a narrative that working hard is inherently bad for your health or that long hours lead to burnout. I disagree. It's not about how many hours you put in, but about the enjoyment and quality of the work you're doing. Still some of my most favorite memories were some all-nighters I did when I was younger working on something. It wasn't even necessarily on projects that ended up meaningful or successful, but it was the act in itself. When you find joy in what you're building in the moment, work does not feel like a burden. Instead it feels exciting and exhilarating. These memories, that some might describe as unhealthy are some of my most pleasant ones.
It’s all about how you feel about it. When you enjoy it, spending nights and weekends can feel great.
[1]: https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2024/12/26/reflecting-on-life/
Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends
#33The main reason not to code on evenings and weekends is that your employer will own everything you do and might not allow you to do whatever you want anyway.
That seems a gross overgeneralization--although you might want to check if it might be an issue.
Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends
#34A 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.
> Companies should only care about what I get done at work. What I do at home is my business.
I mean to some extent you're right, but obviously there are limits here. And, it can be used as a signal to see how interested a person is in something.
As one example, I don't have any college education or beyond that, and when I wanted to start working as a programmer it was kind of hard to get any response from companies and with a tiny local startup ecosystem (this was in Spain back in 2012), I managed to only find one company that was interested in hiring me as an intern in the beginning, to at least give this person without any professional experience a chance.
Since I always done programming as a hobby just for fun, it was way easier for them to evaluate if it was an outlandish bet or a somewhat safe bet, as I already had some projects on GitHub that I had done in my free-time they could look at and displayed some eagerness to program professionally.
I don't mean to say that you have to program in your free time just to be "hireable", but I'm 100% certain individuals who do that (and publish results at least sometimes) have a way higher chance of getting hired, especially if they're just starting their career.
Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends
#35The main reason not to code on evenings and weekends is that your employer will own everything you do and might not allow you to do whatever you want anyway.
Depends on the state and the terms of employment you agreed to. I’ve never agreed to let an employer own anything outside of a very specific scope. And I’ve rarely had to turn down a job because of that constraint. Employers have almost always had a reasonable scope with respect to what they own to begin with or have been fine with changing the scope to be more reasonable.
Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
A "while back".
Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends
#37I would love to code more on nights and weekends, but if I spend too long at the computer it makes my body hurt and feel bad.
I work a remote tech job and despite taking 15 minute (or longer) breaks every couple of hours, I have come to the conclusion that sitting in front of a screen for 8+ hours a day is slowly killing both my mental and physical health. I am trying to combat it with strength training and cardio in the mornings, and spending at least some of my evenings in my garage.
This, unfortunately leaves me with very little time to do the computer and electronics-related projects I would so love to finally be working on. Also makes it just about impossible to level up my technical knowledge to further my career. I kind of dream of retiring early and finding some low-paying job that keeps me walking all day but leaves me with plenty of mental energy to come home and rock out a few hours of coding or whatever in the evening.
Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends
#38A 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 agree with all that. But software development also often seems to have a strong thread that if you don't also do this for fun, you're not really A material--in a way that really doesn't apply to other engineering disciplines. I don't see the same sort of pushback for people who do side-projects as a hobby.
> I agree with all that. But software development also often seems to have a strong thread that if you don't also do this for fun, you're not really A material--in a way that really doesn't apply to other engineering disciplines.
This is the same in every space/community/hobby I've ever participated in. The people who don't live and breathe $SUBJECT 24/7 are often passed off as "posers" and only doing it for the money, in everything from software engineering, finance, gardening, music making, game development or whatever.
Eventually, we grow up and realize everyone needs food on the table, and everyone isn't chasing combining their passion with their career, and sometimes just do their career to earn enough so they can continue with their passions.
Re: It's okay to code on nights and weekends
#39I 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...
I definitely was much more exhausted and with much less energy to work on my projects after I got a real industry job, sadly.
It's pretty natural if you do some activity all day for work, also doing it as a hobby is much harder.