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I think s/he was trying to say that some people completely devote themselves to their work instead of side projects.
by MikeMacMan 17y ago
I think s/he was trying to say that some people completely devote themselves to their work instead of side projects.
- aaronblohowiak 17y agoThis, and I don't consider exploratory throw-away code a "pet project" (probably because most of those explorations are evaluating techniques for work.) Further, if I am interested in doing X then I find a way to do that professionally.
- sophacles 17y agoI have found it is easier to do it the other way -- I'm interested in X. I'll start doing it. Money will follow. And more interesting job offers.
- Rabidgremlin 17y agoInteresting. I would say that the tools, concepts, techniques, solutions, etc that I learnt whilst working on my side projects improved the quality of my "work" by orders of magnitude and have been invaluable to my career. In fact with some teams I have worked with, if we interviewed a tech person who did not have any side projects we often viewed them with suspicion.
- aaronblohowiak 17y agoI have seen a similar pattern where learning new ancillary skills have increased the quality of my core competency. I think side-projects are a decent proxy for curiosity and industriousness, which I try very hard to evaluate when interviewing candidates. However, my line of questioning for this has to do with what complaints people have with their tools and what they have done to overcome them -- this shows a similar desire to have internally-motivated programming tasks and a desire for understanding more than simple project requirements.