I will often experiment with new technologies while working on a side project. For example, right now I have an active side project that is a mobile app with a

I will often experiment with new technologies while working on a side project. For example, right now I have an active side project that is a mobile app with a (geo)Django backend. A couple months ago I became aware of PostgREST. It's an interesting project and aspects of it appeal to me. But it's still worng. So I thought "why not do something like that, but in Common Lisp". I messed around with it for a few weeks and proved to myself that I can in fact, build a better mousetrap. Spent a couple more weeks toying around with writing a new postgres client library to support it. And finally, last weekend I returned to Django. When I've got the iPhone and Andriod stuff working and have it all deployed -- I'll go back to the Lisp stuff and reimplement the backend. For me, a side project is an opportunity to build something while allowing myself to run off on little tangents. I can't justify doing that when working for somebody else. But on a side project nobody even knows I'm working on... Might as well might as well.