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In general, I agree with this. But sometimes, one's job doesn't provide an outlet for one's passion. It could be because the technology is old, the libraries/to

In general, I agree with this. But sometimes, one's job doesn't provide an outlet for one's passion. It could be because the technology is old, the libraries/tools are out-of-date/internal-only or simply because the work feels like a grind and doesn't lend itself to creativity. In this case, there could still be room in engaging one's creative side through a side project. The key is that a side project like this shouldn't feel like "work". There's no use cargo-culting the side project craze if it doesn't flow naturally. For example, I have a friend who's currently working on a home automation project that involves significant programming. I can tell it brings joy to his life, the same way that painting would to an artist. Maybe this doesn't make him more "rounded", but what's the difference? When I see him talk about it, his eyes light up with the same passion I see from those in the traditionally "creative" fields. In the same way, I love spending time using Jupyter Notebooks/Pandas to do rudimentary data analysis. It's fun, and I've learned a ton, some of which has come back to help in my day job.

downboy 10y ago
Exactly this. I grind on a massive codebase everyday and the time and risk involved in migrating to new tech would be far too great. Going home and spinning up a new project in some new language/framework is the only option.
- tracker1 10y ago
  8 years ago, I was working in a pretty massive codebase... I did two major refactors (both going into the wee hours of the night, so I could get it done without conflicting with others)... one was changing all date-time communications as well as ensuring all dates in the DB were UTC. The other was refactoring all of the logging within an application in the client and server-side. Both times consisted of intentionally breaking things and fixing everything that was broken in the new way. Both times I was jokingly referred to as the "king of refactoring." After some relatively bad experiences late last year, I was offered the job I have now working with a few of the people I worked with then, based on that experience. You don't always have to be afraid to make a sweeping change, but you should have a plan, and should try to execute with minimal impact on others. The date-time one was triggered by having to drive an hour into the office, at 1am because of a bug in a deployment update... in the end, it was easier to rip out and replace with something more consistent. Also, there are times where you can break something off into something that can use newer tech... such as a minimal node api connecting to a search database that's feed updates by another mini service that replicates data from an sql db... Try to dedicate a portion of your day/week to exploring how new things can provide value... get it done. As Admiral Hopper said, "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission." Sometimes in the face of contrarianism, it's easier to "just do it."
closeparen 10y ago
>There's no use cargo-culting the side project craze if it doesn't flow naturally. The expected value of generating evidence of your "passion" is actually pretty high, given how strongly people who hand out high salaries (and interesting work) prefer to hire those with a propensity not only to spend every waking hour working, but to be happy about it. Conversely, the job prospects of an unabashed "9-5 programmer" aren't great. It isn't in your interests to give the appearance that 8 (or 10) hours of programming every day is enough. I'd guess that most hours sunk into side projects are seen by their creators as the hard work necessary to enter or advance in the field, more than as leisure time.

downboy 10y ago

Exactly this. I grind on a massive codebase everyday and the time and risk involved in migrating to new tech would be far too great. Going home and spinning up a new project in some new language/framework is the only option.

tracker1 10y ago
8 years ago, I was working in a pretty massive codebase... I did two major refactors (both going into the wee hours of the night, so I could get it done without conflicting with others)... one was changing all date-time communications as well as ensuring all dates in the DB were UTC. The other was refactoring all of the logging within an application in the client and server-side. Both times consisted of intentionally breaking things and fixing everything that was broken in the new way. Both times I was jokingly referred to as the "king of refactoring." After some relatively bad experiences late last year, I was offered the job I have now working with a few of the people I worked with then, based on that experience. You don't always have to be afraid to make a sweeping change, but you should have a plan, and should try to execute with minimal impact on others. The date-time one was triggered by having to drive an hour into the office, at 1am because of a bug in a deployment update... in the end, it was easier to rip out and replace with something more consistent. Also, there are times where you can break something off into something that can use newer tech... such as a minimal node api connecting to a search database that's feed updates by another mini service that replicates data from an sql db... Try to dedicate a portion of your day/week to exploring how new things can provide value... get it done. As Admiral Hopper said, "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission." Sometimes in the face of contrarianism, it's easier to "just do it."

closeparen 10y ago

>There's no use cargo-culting the side project craze if it doesn't flow naturally. The expected value of generating evidence of your "passion" is actually pretty high, given how strongly people who hand out high salaries (and interesting work) prefer to hire those with a propensity not only to spend every waking hour working, but to be happy about it. Conversely, the job prospects of an unabashed "9-5 programmer" aren't great. It isn't in your interests to give the appearance that 8 (or 10) hours of programming every day is enough. I'd guess that most hours sunk into side projects are seen by their creators as the hard work necessary to enter or advance in the field, more than as leisure time.