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

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

#41

Post by dragonwriter »

huffmsa wrote: post #40
dragonwriter wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Studying law isn't practicing law.

And doing side projects isn't practicing the trade that would be regulated if programming was a regulated profession.

> But working full-stress cases outside of your actual work?

Whoever said programming side projects should be “full-stress cases”?

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

#42

Post by Longhanks »

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…

Or, that's it for me personally, coding what I want, with no deadlines, managers or 'agile' strategy, is really a lot of fun.

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

#43

Post by keanebean86 »

bovermyer wrote: post #16
Tor3 wrote: post #12

Well.. this assumes that coding (all coding?) is a burden.. I agree with the article in that coding _for_ work, outside of normal work hours, isn't something to strive for. I did that a lot when I was young, but that was not only when it was necessary due to the strained time schedules we had then, it was also because I literally hungered for it. I needed to. So I would go back to work after dinner and hack away to f…

On personal projects I have entered a flow state so deep that, when my wife interrupts me to remind me I skipped breakfast and now it's lunchtime, it takes me a few moments to actually be able to understand her. It's like she's speaking a foreign language. I have never had that happen at a day job.

I've done this to lesser extents a few times. Last week I read the comment below and it legit scared me. I've been getting up and walking a lot more because of it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19699955

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

#44

Post by P_I_Staker »

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…

Yup. I agree about work life balance and not letting your profession consume you. On the other hand "real professions" do have continuing education outside of work, and it does seem to suck. Takes similar, or even more hours than personal coding, and it's probably less enjoyable. There's an argument that programmers should be treated more like licensed professionals, be more liable for mistakes due to negligence, and have more demands placed on them.

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

#46

Post by huffmsa »

dragonwriter wrote: post #41
huffmsa wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Studying law isn't practicing law. And doing side projects isn't practicing the trade that would be regulated if programming was a regulated profession. > But working full-stress cases outside of your actual work? Whoever said programming side projects should be “full-stress cases”?

> Whoever said programming side projects should be “full-stress cases”?

That's what the context is here. There's a notion in the software development profession that you should have a side project which you put near full-time hours and / or effort into. Because you love coding so much you can't stop.

Be it your future start-up, or contributing to an open source project (or 3).

Studying law is equivalent to reading the tech news / seing what other people are doing / keeping up with best practices. Actually writing a project using it is another level of complexity.

It's the difference between reading and analyzing the arguments of a legal case and reconstructing and presenting the arguments yourself.

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

#47

Post by zachsnow »

badfrog wrote: post #21
Tor3 wrote: post #12

Well.. this assumes that coding (all coding?) is a burden.. I agree with the article in that coding _for_ work, outside of normal work hours, isn't something to strive for. I did that a lot when I was young, but that was not only when it was necessary due to the strained time schedules we had then, it was also because I literally hungered for it. I needed to. So I would go back to work after dinner and hack away to f…

If that's what you want to do with your time, cool. This article is aimed at people who don't want to do that but feel like they have to.

The article states that by not coding at home you can “have a life, too”, implying you won’t have one if you code at home. This idea is repeated in the article, suggesting to me that it is more than just clickbait.

That’s dumb. Of course you can “have a life”, regardless of whether your hobbies include something you also get paid for. Denigrating folks as not having a “life” for this reason, even as a rhetorical device, is dumb.

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

#48

Post by segmondy »

No it's not, not if you want to want to claim to be a true professional.

I have never met a professional that only engages in their craft at work only. Professionals practice their craft all time especially outside work.

Work time is game time. Work time is not the time to engage in Research but strictly development. Unless you work for an R&D lab. It is the engaging in research instead of development that's the cause of software projects failing and having all sorts of issue. When it's D time, it's time to simply apply all the best principles that you know, nothing else.

This means, you must practice (research) off hours.

Can you imagine a math professor that only practices mathematics only when they teach? Or a musician that only plays music only during performance?

It's okay to only code at work if you are just a code monkey and not a professional. In that case, don't expect the high rewards of the industry, don't claim to be a "professional" granted that the definition of a professional is one that does it only for money.

Look at the very best in the industry, just think of them, name em. They all code outside of work. Jeff Dean, Norvig, Linus, Stallman, Carmack, Wolfram

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

#50

Post by pradn »

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 it's only the HN crowd that tries to look at side-projects from the monetization angle. (How else do you explain the frequent 'what's your side-business' posts? Also, this is a VC's site after all.) There are many computing cultures - people making games for gamejams, working on quines, writing code for GameBoys, contributing to Firefox, Arduino hackers. Maybe finding one of those groups will change your mindset?
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