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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

#61

Post by gnode »

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.

Most personal coding is done (at least initially) for personal use. Those specialisms you list are not ones most people regularly consume. Software is something virtually everyone in developed countries consumes daily. I think for that reason, a better comparison is whether farmers grow food for themselves, or whether chefs cook their own meals.

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

#62

Post by dragonwriter »

huffmsa wrote: post #46
dragonwriter wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 th…

> That's what the context is here.

I disagree.

> 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.

There's a common notion that you should be doing practical learning, including side projects, outside of “normal” paid work. It is far less common, however, to encounter the idea that it should be near full-time hours (and it's not clear to me what “full-time effort” distinct from hours even could mean.)

> Studying law is equivalent to reading the tech news / seing what other people are doing / keeping up with best practices.

No, it's not: in fact, this kind of professional reading is often expressly excluded from the definition of activities that apply to continuing legal education requirements. Lawyers do, as a practical matter, need to do the equivalent of what you are talking about, but in addition to not as their CLE requirement.

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

#63

Post by dragonwriter »

C1sc0cat wrote: post #59
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…

CPE is meant to be in work time though

> CPE is meant to be in work time though

For independent practitioners, it's outside of billable client time, but, yes, for people working wage labor on the profession this is true.

Software dev as wage labor has pretty crappy (for a profession) work conditions, and part of that is employers not alotting time and funding for CPE.

That doesn't mean people in the field shouldn't do CPE, but it does mean they should seek better terms of employment.

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

#64

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

#65

Post by citeguised »

I work in Front-End and have always had side-projects with coding involved (Games, Websites, CLI-Tools).

Some of my career's and company's circumstances (no senior front-end-devs for reviewing and mentoring around, mostly work on classic websites/web-shops) make it necessary. It's the only way to keep my skills somewhat up-to-date and to improve beyond what I do at work.

Coding and building is fun to me, so I was ok with this. After getting kids though, my available home-coding-time shrunk to almost zero.

My employer does allow and pay for conferences/workshops, but there's nothing as good for learning as a real project with more senior team-members, I guess.

I really don't want to leave after 8 years of building reputation and seniority, and start from scratch elsewhere, in a big unknown.

How do others cope with that?

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

#66

Post by gnode »

Personally, I feel like if I didn't develop software outside of work, I would start to see software development as work, rather than a skill, just like being able to write or play a musical instrument.

I think, for your own sake, if you're skilled at something, you should try to use that skill on your own terms. Many arduous professions are the practise of enjoyable skills on someone else's terms (be it an employer or a market): driving, cooking, gardening, etc.

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

#67

Post by JohnFen »

I love to code, and do so not only at work but at home as well.

That said, I was unaware that there are people who feel pressure to code in their off-hours. That's silly. On your own time, you should do whatever helps you live a good life and be happier. If that includes programming, there's nothing wrong with that. If it doesn't, there's also nothing wrong with that.

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

#68

Post by bovermyer »

keanebean86 wrote: post #43
bovermyer wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yeah, that's a problem that I haven't had yet, but I really need to work on avoiding. I spend way too much time sitting.

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

#69

Post by JohnFen »

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 often get bogged down with "how do I monetize, market, and maintain this", which just kills my motivation.

If someone is thinking that way, then they aren't engaging in a hobby, they're engaging in a startup. That's two different things.

I used to fall into this way of thinking before I recognized what a trap it actually is. Now, when I start a hobby project, I intentionally ignore possible monetization of it. If I feel a strong urge to monetize, then I move it out of my recreation time and into my work time.

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

#70

Post by saiya-jin »

arkades wrote: post #27
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 doctor practice medicine outside of his hours? Again, some work at free clinics, but generally no. Constantly. Besides being on formal call, there are informal consults texted or called in constantly, plus emergencies, plus friends-and-family consults. Plus paperwork for the patients you’ve seen very often takes longer than your “official” hours. And keeping up to date on the relevant literature is not somet…

No. What you describe are still work hours. They can, and often do lead to overtime (paid or not), but its far fetch from wrapping your work at workplace, coming home, and continuing doing the same stuff. At least that's how common doctors's work looks in Switzerland.
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