If you enjoy programming do some development in your spare time. Find a project that interests you. Programming is a tool, master it by all means if that is what you want. However, don't lose grasp of the fact that there are numerous other pursuits you can take up. Learn a language, build a house, learn chemistry, send a rocket into orbit, make an erotic film, excel in martial arts, whatever it is that you want to do, do it. Have a diverse range of experiences and regret nothing in life. Don't just be a developer.
I don't program in my spare time. Does that make me a bad developer?
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Re: I don't program in my spare time. Does that make me a bad developer?
#62Programming is my hobby. I work on a startup product in my spare time, one question I'm faced with - is it possible to balance corporate work, startup idea and have time for side (hobby) projects? If startup product is not my main task when out of work, is it a sign that the thing will fail?
I'd like to learn 3d, develop simple games, learn new languages and algorithms while still working on the startup product and maintain my corp job. Do you think it's possible?
Re: I don't program in my spare time. Does that make me a bad developer?
#63Programming in your spare time is much less attractive when your employer claims to own all the code you write.
Re: I don't program in my spare time. Does that make me a bad developer?
#64[deleted]
Re: I don't program in my spare time. Does that make me a bad developer?
#65A good programmer should wake up at 6 am in the morning get a solid 2.5hrs of coding done by 8:30 am, at 8:30 leave for work, work till 6 (it goes without saying that the lunchbreak must be spent trying to learn the Haskell or if you are feeling lazy answering questions on stackoverflow). Commute from 6 to 6:30 (it's a bonus if you listen to a technical podcast during this time and no stuff like TWIT does not count,…
Does that mean you code in the shower?
Re: I don't program in my spare time. Does that make me a bad developer?
#66It comes down to caring enough to do it right. You have to love it and be a pedant who pays stringent attention to detail. You can be smart and motivated but unless you really want to know why and how it all works and fits together it's hard to excel.
That type of person will always be reading and writing code and solving problems. Spare time and work time all blurs if you are focused on a problem.
Re: I don't program in my spare time. Does that make me a bad developer?
#67A good programmer should wake up at 6 am in the morning get a solid 2.5hrs of coding done by 8:30 am, at 8:30 leave for work, work till 6 (it goes without saying that the lunchbreak must be spent trying to learn the Haskell or if you are feeling lazy answering questions on stackoverflow). Commute from 6 to 6:30 (it's a bonus if you listen to a technical podcast during this time and no stuff like TWIT does not count,…
I guess not everybody caught the irony
Re: I don't program in my spare time. Does that make me a bad developer?
#68[deleted]
Re: I don't program in my spare time. Does that make me a bad developer?
#69Correlation does not equal causation. Asking whether not programming in your spare time makes you a bad developer is the wrong question. The right question is, What is it about certain/many good developers that leads them to program in their spare time? Pursue that something and you may end up programming in your spare time. Or starting a company such that your side project is your job. Or finding something really ex…
The right question is, What is it about certain/many good developers that leads them to program in their spare time? This is a good question, but it does lead me to a thought... why does it seem like most side projects are done by people for whom the predominance of their work appears to be side projects? Let me explain. Most of the programmers who produce large products, don't do much in the way of side projects. Ca…
Linus has a few: tracker[1], pesconvert[2], and a fork of uemacs[3].
1. http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/tracker.g...
2. http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/pesconver...
3. http://git.kernel.org/?p=editors/uemacs/uemacs.git;a=summary
Re: I don't program in my spare time. Does that make me a bad developer?
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about the auxiliary scripts that need to be written for some tasks to automate some task that is ancillary to your product? If you are writing a ruby script for those tasks that are useful but could be done by brute force methods I don't see a problem with that. Automation of deployment or some menial task, sanitizing test data, gleaning statistics from a csv dump of the database, cron jobs, etc... I'm sure you…
>What about the auxiliary scripts that need to be written for some tasks to automate some task that is ancillary to your product? If you are writing a ruby script for those tasks that are useful but could be done by brute force methods I don't see a problem with that. Pfft. Any semi conservative workplace, anywhere: "What? No, who the hell would maintain it? Stick to ." Although I like to think I'm a bit cooler and d…
I didn't mean anything that other people use. Just scripts that help you out; those scripts are for you and you alone. They help you do you job more effectively but do not require you to install them on other machines. It depends on the size of the company for where the level of latitude stops though.