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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

#51

Post by jdlyga »

segmondy wrote: post #48

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 caus…

Spending 100% of work time coding reminds me of the startup world. Eventually it leads to a culture where people get locked in the same patterns and don't try new things. If you work at a larger company, there's always down time for watching conference videos, side projects, etc. I've found encouraging people to spend some of their work time learning makes for better developers.

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

#52

Post by [deleted] »

segmondy wrote: post #48

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 caus…

[deleted]

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

#53

Post by wenham »

segmondy wrote: post #48

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 caus…

I don't think the post is say that you CAN be the next Jeff Dean, Norvig, Linus, Stallman, Carmack, Wolfram etc. etc. by not coding outside of work. I think they are saying that it's OK not code outside of work, its OK not to be in this very top percent of the profession.

What is a 'True Professional' in the context? I don't think you can compare the top 0.01% of any profession to the rest and say this small percentage are the 'True' professionals and the rest are not. Pretty sure my accountant is not doing accounting in his spare time, he is no less a professional for not doing so.

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

#54

Post by threwawasy1228 »

I hate that this has become so entrenched, and I hate that my previous jobs don't allow me to use samples from their codebase in my portfolio. I hate feeling like my github or bitbucket are sparse and this is somehow a sin. Just give me a takehome project and I will show you how I program, it is really that simple! Don't force me to waste my precious time making little toys in my spare time to potentially amuse someone. Yes I could make a minesweeper clone in a day, no I don't want to.

Most of the fun of programming for me is the mathematics and theory portion, I like to implement or toy around with algorithms and write little half finished scripts. That is fun for me, but is that presentable? Nope.

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

#56

Post by segmondy »

jdlyga wrote: post #51
segmondy wrote: post #48

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 caus…

Spending 100% of work time coding reminds me of the startup world. Eventually it leads to a culture where people get locked in the same patterns and don't try new things. If you work at a larger company, there's always down time for watching conference videos, side projects, etc. I've found encouraging people to spend some of their work time learning makes for better developers.

There's no difference between work and living. it's all the same. This work/life balance is crap. Working 100% of the time is bad, but the idea that your only can work in an allocate piece of time for intellectual work is the most ridiculous thing ever. Doesn't matter if you write music, write code, or writing a book. You work when your mind is ready to go. To refuse to work when your brain is ready is a strong signal that you don't have passion for this. If you're engaged in manual labor then sure, but for all intellectual work there's no boundary. It's perfectly NOT okay to preach these rubbish about being mediocre. The interesting thing is the very people who also code anywhere, tend to be very balanced and also enjoy their life outside of coding.

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

#57

Post by rich-tea »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #55
rich-tea wrote: post #13

Yeah. It's also perfectly OK to code outside of work. It's still "having a life" but it's my life and therefore my choice.

Obviously. But no one is being pressured to not code at home by their peers and employers.

Except when they imply that it's "not having a life".

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

#58

Post by C1sc0cat »

soneca wrote: post #32
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 mon…

No I would have taken side project or gig - to absolutely mean a moneymaking enterprise.

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

#59

Post by C1sc0cat »

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…

CPE is meant to be in work time though
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