Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I don't program in my spare time. Does that make me a bad developer?

programmers.stackexchange.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 156 posts

Re: I don't program in my spare time. Does that make me a bad developer?

#81

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

unshift wrote: post #5

when i'm working a 9-5 job, the last thing i want to do is go home and program more. i'd rather throw the ball around with the dog or rock out on my guitar. in my experience the people who say "you have to have side projects to be a good developer" are either people who do program in their spare time, or people who want to hire the type of programmers who voluntarily chain themselves to their desk. this is one myth i…

> good accountants don't balance checkbooks in their spare time, do they? lawyers don't hold mock trials.

I've worked for a law firm, they get round this problem by not giving their lawyers spare time if they can help it.

Re: I don't program in my spare time. Does that make me a bad developer?

#82

Post by danssig »

impendia wrote: post #26

I am a research mathematician. I work hard, but I also spend a lot of time pursuing other interests such as yoga, swing dancing, and improv comedy. This takes away from the time I do math. Does this make me less of a mathematician? Of course it does. This is a tautology. I am a mathematician to the extent which I devote my time and energy to learning and doing math. Sometimes I feel guilty about this, but on reflecti…

>Does this make me less of a mathematician? Of course it does.

I disagree. Burn out is a real thing and once it happens your capacity is drastically reduced. I suspect you've probably found the maximum output you're capable of producing long term.

Re: I don't program in my spare time. Does that make me a bad developer?

#83

Post by error »

Yes, you are a very bad programmer! just follow reedF211 advice to improve yourself, and be prepared to loose everyone around you.

good programmers do not have friends :)

and by the way do not forget to meditate on sarcasm, always make the other feel bad for being alive.

Re: I don't program in my spare time. Does that make me a bad developer?

#84

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

phillmv wrote: post #52
weaksauce wrote: post #33

Earlier 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…

Actually this is where we let our developers experiment a bit. Obviously nothing too out there but just because you're a Java shop it doesn't mean that Java is the best tool for everything you might do so it can make sense on a few levels.

Re: I don't program in my spare time. Does that make me a bad developer?

#86

Post by fourk »

unshift wrote: post #5

when i'm working a 9-5 job, the last thing i want to do is go home and program more. i'd rather throw the ball around with the dog or rock out on my guitar. in my experience the people who say "you have to have side projects to be a good developer" are either people who do program in their spare time, or people who want to hire the type of programmers who voluntarily chain themselves to their desk. this is one myth i…

Let's say you and I started writing code at the same age or time, and you code only 9-5, whereas I code an average of 15 hours a week more than that in my spare time. Two years later, I've gotten as much experience (or at least put in as many hours) as would take you >3 years to gather. Five years after we started, I'm 3 years your senior in terms of experience.

It's not that you won't be a good developer if you don't work on side projects; it's that as compared to anyone your own age who codes in their spare time, you're going to have less experience. You'll probably be way better at the guitar, or taking care of your dog, or whatever else you're doing instead of coding, but they'll be a better programmer.

Re: I don't program in my spare time. Does that make me a bad developer?

#87

Post by argimenes »

I don't think it does necessarily, although it might be a symptom of lack of confidence or dissatisfaction with your work programming. I think having a broad range of interests - reading, playing music, drawing, socialising, sports - makes you a complete human being but programming for yourself, at home, should probably also be something that gives you joy. Rather than asking whether you're a 'bad developer' maybe start from the other end: 'What is preventing me from hacking at home? What spoils it?'

The other thing I recommend is to do the kind of programming that YOU enjoy and NOT the kind of programming that you think is necessarily 'important' or 'difficult'. All you need is that ONE opening, that ONE gap into accessing the joy of programming.

Re: I don't program in my spare time. Does that make me a bad developer?

#88

Post by lhnz »

I think the idea that you must program in your spare time and contribute to open-source has a sociocultural benefit. It might be more 'pure' to devote all of your time to your fellow developers and improving your art.

Yet the quality of your work has nothing to do with the time you spend on it. Quality over quantity, as they say.

Either way, there is certainly some benefit to be had in being passionate about your work and in keeping on the bleeding edge of technology.

Re: I don't program in my spare time. Does that make me a bad developer?

#89

Post by retube »

reedF211 wrote: post #23

A 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,…

Oh man I hope you're joking!

Re: I don't program in my spare time. Does that make me a bad developer?

#90

Post by icebraining »

kenjackson wrote: post #44
andywood wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention things like Orcs & Elves, and Wolf3D for the iPhone. Carmack is a really bad example here!

I'm not sure you can count those as side projects (the games, not the aerospace company, which is a side project -- but it is an actual company!). Those are products shipped by some of the biggest publishers in the world. That would be like someone at MS saying that their side project was a new feature in Word.

Wolf3D for the iPhone was supposed to be programmed by a different team. He simply found it to be a poor port when they presented it and wrote his own version in a couple of weeks. Seems like a side project to me, regardless of its distribution.
Post reply on HN