"Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
Are You A Bad Developer If You Don't Take On Side Projects?
31–40 of 92 posts
Re: Are You A Bad Developer If You Don't Take On Side Projects?
#32Is Forbes really scraping content from Quora and presenting it as an article?
It's not entirely slimy. Its a great way to drive traffic for both Forbes and Quora. How many people would have read this opinion if Forbes hadn't made it slightly more high-profile? Ars has been doing a similar feature-series for awhile, and I think its one of the best parts of their site: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/08/how-ea... I will give you that the Ars series is edited much much better t…
It says a lot about Quora that the best way to discover content on Quora is for it to run on another site.
Re: Are You A Bad Developer If You Don't Take On Side Projects?
#33You will make more money if you have an active github account. For most people this means side projects/work. You will be a better developer if you code more. You will be exposed to more languages, tools, people, and ideas. If you don't code in your spare time, but you are happy where you are, don't feel like you are a bad developer, you just will not be as good at development as you could be. It is your life, why do…
How does your no hiring without code samples work when it comes to IP encumbered industries? I for one haven't worked without a NDA that includes my code for over 10 years, and neither have any of the people on my current team.
Further, contributing to open source projects (outside of what I do for my employer) is also problematic, because nearly all the things I'm interested in/expert in are very related to what I do for my employer. Figuring out what is and is not work product and what I can and cannot release is a hassle I just don't want.
Seems like your rule and your reliance on GitHub is a very narrow filter and you are likely getting a very narrow subset of potential applicants.
Re: Are You A Bad Developer If You Don't Take On Side Projects?
#34I don't have side projects, instead I spend that free time training for and running triathlons. I can't show as impressive a GitHub as my peers, but I'm sure as hell a lot more healthier and physically active. Whether that means anything to recruiters, who knows.
Re: Are You A Bad Developer If You Don't Take On Side Projects?
#35From the Quora answer [1]: > I do attend (and give) technical talks; and perhaps most > importantly, I pick my day job based on learning and > growth opportunities: which company I’m working at, which > team I’m on, and which projects I take on. I stumbled > onto this a little bit by accident, but I discovered that > responsibilities in your day job that require you to > learn are a great forcing function for learnin…
I agree, you're dead on with the point the author is actually making (there are other ways to learn / build a portfolio in one's free time than side projects) vs the point many commenters seem to want the author to be making: software engineers should be able to do their jobs well, go home, and do something else for a couple hours. I'd like to see someone take that on, but this article--err, Quora post--doesn't quite do that.
Re: Are You A Bad Developer If You Don't Take On Side Projects?
#36When I first got into development, I was urged to do side projects because I could make more money and because people thought I would learn a lot. After a two years, I really didn't learn a lot and ended up dealing with customers who were overzealous and pushed me around to get more out of me then what they were paying me for (virtually peanuts).
After a while, I figured I would take a year off and not do any side projects and focus on building my skills. I built more stuff in that year then I ever could being shackled to something which I would never learn much from.
I never looked back after that first year. I continue to learn faster and pick frameworks, techniques and languages far faster than I ever imagined.
What's the downside?
- Maybe not putting a few thousand tax free American dollars back in my pocket.
What's the upside?
- Spending more time with my family since I can learn on my own time and at my own pace without any deadlines looming.
- Learning things that are interesting to me.
- Building things I think are cool - not what somebody else thinks they want. Like having Comic Sans in their company logo.
- Staying on the cutting edge of my industry without falling behind.
Re: Are You A Bad Developer If You Don't Take On Side Projects?
#37Are you a bad artist if you don't paint on your own time?
Are you a bad writer if you don't write on your own time?
Are you a bad carpenter if you don't craft on your own time?
No. You can be an excellent, professional .+\. But it's very rare to see someone at the top of their field who isn't passionate about their vocation. I haven't heard of many rockstars who started playing music for the money.
Re: Are You A Bad Developer If You Don't Take On Side Projects?
#38You will make more money if you have an active github account. For most people this means side projects/work. You will be a better developer if you code more. You will be exposed to more languages, tools, people, and ideas. If you don't code in your spare time, but you are happy where you are, don't feel like you are a bad developer, you just will not be as good at development as you could be. It is your life, why do…
How does your no hiring without code samples work when it comes to IP encumbered industries? I for one haven't worked without a NDA that includes my code for over 10 years, and neither have any of the people on my current team. Further, contributing to open source projects (outside of what I do for my employer) is also problematic, because nearly all the things I'm interested in/expert in are very related to what I d…
Keep in mind that the OP is probably in a very different industry than you are; if you have enough expertise that your interests are things you can't work on independently (like quant or security?), you will likely be applying to a nonoverlapping set of jobs as the OP, which (I'd guess) are much more interested in experience than a github profile.
On the other hand, if you're a startup CRUD hacker, your potential employers are much more likely to expect some personal CRUD projects in your github, since 1) that's easier to do than personal quant/sec/whatever work and 2) there are likely a lot more applicants for such jobs, so they can afford to filter for "hustlers"
Re: Are You A Bad Developer If You Don't Take On Side Projects?
#39You will make more money if you have an active github account. For most people this means side projects/work. You will be a better developer if you code more. You will be exposed to more languages, tools, people, and ideas. If you don't code in your spare time, but you are happy where you are, don't feel like you are a bad developer, you just will not be as good at development as you could be. It is your life, why do…
You will make more money if you have an active github account. For most people this means side projects/work.
More than what? The highest earning programmers I know have never heard of github and would never consider using it.
You will be a better developer if you code more. You will be exposed to more languages, tools, people, and ideas.
You will be a better developer if you deliver more. "More languages, tools, people, and ideas" can just as easily dilute your focus as improve your skill. To get better, you must focus on results, not activity.
If you don't code in your spare time, but you are happy where you are,
Why do you assume these 2 are mutually exclusive? I know lots of excellent programmers who deliver more before noon than most deliver all week. Nothing wrong with being excellent during working hours and doing something else in your spare time, like perhaps, enjoying your spare time.
If you want to be a better developer more than anything, then you should code. If something is stopping you from doing that, remove the blocker.
If you want to be a better developer more than anything, then you should deliver production quality software. Sometimes the "blocker" is a distraction. Distractions can be other things that masquerade as "side work".
Personally, I don't hire anyone if I can't see code samples. 95% of the people I hire have their code samples on Github (not in a .zip file). So make sure you have some code samples available, but it doesn't have to be a side project or open source work.
Personally, I never show code samples. I'll gladly go through the right company's process, including coding for them. But they don't get to see anything I've ever done before out of context and without proper permissions. And personally, I will never work for anyone with hard and fast rules about hiring. 3pt14159 is choosing to not consider many of the best programmers who refuse to show their underwear. His loss.
Re: Are You A Bad Developer If You Don't Take On Side Projects?
#40Are you a bad artist if you don't paint on your own time? Are you a bad writer if you don't write on your own time? Are you a bad carpenter if you don't craft on your own time? No. You can be an excellent, professional .+\. But it's very rare to see someone at the top of their field who isn't passionate about their vocation. I haven't heard of many rockstars who started playing music for the money.
Well the thing about art, music, and writing is that, at least until you make it big (which most people never do) you're doing it only on your own time, since no one's paying you.
Software's in this weird spot where it has some qualities of art (creative, inspires "passion", we expect people to do it without getting paid) and some qualities of a craft (it pays)