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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

#41

Post by jncfhnb »

Waterluvian wrote: post #10

Stream of thoughts: - I recently had an hours-long screenshare with a MMO guild leader showing dozens of spreadsheets. I was bewildered until he said that this is the game for him. This stuff is fun . He loves it. You can love what people call "work." - I fell into a years-long trap of, "if is not advancing my career or my family, why would it ever be worth doing?" This led to depression and terrible downwards spiral…

Accomplishing goals is fun. Doesn’t really matter what you do to achieve them. “Fun” almost doesn’t exist as an isolated concept.

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

#42

Post by zelphirkalt »

bee_rider wrote: post #25
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…

I think this hits the mark, or almost hits the mark. I think there is more to it. People who are passionate about computer programming and also do it off the job will over time gain more experience and knowledge than their only on the job counterparts. There is at least one additional anxiety, which is, that in a company people don't listen to those, who do it with passion, and rather play hierarchy games. When they don't listen and the things you predicted then happen, impacting your work, then it sucks and it was entirely preventable. So the anxiety is, that people will think of not passionate employee A the same as passionate employee B, even though one of them has a lot more experience due to lots of free time projects and exploring things outside of work, and will give their opinion equal weight, potentially leading to bad decisions, that impact what B needs to work with.

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

#43

Post by aprilthird2021 »

ghaff wrote: post #12
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 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.

It's one of the few highly paid fields where you can do it for fun. You cannot really practice medicine or law in your free time on whatever you want. You can only really do charity work in your free time. Not medical or legal research or anything like what OSS / personal projects are for us.

For other types of engineering, I think there is a bit of a thread of doing it for fun. The Homebrew Robotics Club comes to mind. The easier it is to actually create something in your field, the more there will be a thread of doing it because you love it.

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

#44

Post by [deleted] »

ghaff wrote: post #12
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 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.

[deleted]

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

#45

Post by ghaff »

diggan wrote: post #38
ghaff wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mone…

Music making? Probably. If I'm a landscaper, I'm not sure I need to have a garden at home. Finance? Other than managing my personal finances, I'm not sure I'd have any reason to be an active bond trader in my spare time even if that's what I did all day.

Hopefully you like your day job well enough but lots of very competent people shut it off when they go home.

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

#46

Post by whstl »

bee_rider wrote: post #25
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…

I don’t disagree in general, but I remember the world before careerists and we were also listening to and collaborating with customers, and delivering results.

Maybe significantly more tham today.

I remember talking constantly with end-users 20 years ago, something I’ve seen countless PMs dreading, postponing and treating like an absolute chore. I’ve experimented, A/B tested and rolled back code in enterprise, something that is a bureaucratic nightmare even in agile startups.

If they have rights to a paycheck, then we should also have rights to not have the joy sucked out of it.

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

#47

Post by rafaelmn »

ghaff wrote: post #12
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 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.

>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.

Software scales differently, that's why software companies that benefit from that scaling pay so much for top talent.

I can't think of an area where being hyperfocused on your discipline isn't viewed as a a given to get to the top. It's just that most engineering positions that I know of don't care if you're the best to do X, and are more "can you do X". Equivalent to enterprise 9-5.

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

#48

Post by el_benhameen »

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.

I like building stuff. During the day, I get paid to do it for my employer. In my off time, sometimes it takes the form of a personal project. Sometimes it takes the form of a house or garden project. And sometimes I’m still thinking about something that I’m enjoying at work, so it takes the form of a little more work on a work project. If I’m enjoying it and I’m not doing it to the exclusion of family time, then whatever, I’m happy.

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

#49

Post by diggan »

ghaff wrote: post #45
diggan wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 mone…

Music making? Probably. If I'm a landscaper, I'm not sure I need to have a garden at home. Finance? Other than managing my personal finances, I'm not sure I'd have any reason to be an active bond trader in my spare time even if that's what I did all day. Hopefully you like your day job well enough but lots of very competent people shut it off when they go home.

> If I'm a landscaper, I'm not sure I need to have a garden at home.

There are more professions around gardening than specifically landscaping :) And yes, they have communities and hard-core fans who read books, engage with community members and spend basically 24/7 thinking about plants and what not.

Same with finance. You've never met any finance-bros who just can't stop talking about finance every time you look their way?

> Hopefully you like your day job well enough but lots of very competent people shut it off when they go home.

Absolutely, I wasn't trying to say if you don't do that, you suck at your day-job. I'm just trying to get across that this pushback you see sometimes in the software industry about people just doing it as a job instead of a passion are "worse" somehow, happens in every industry I know of. It's in no way exclusive to software developers.

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

#50

Post by htrp »

It's about coding on things you want not things you have to do.

>There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive four-horse passenger-coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line in the summer because the privilege costs them considerable money; but if they were offered wages for the service, that would turn it into work, and then they would resign.

Mark Twain

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