> But the difference is, good programmers actually LIKE to code. Even in our spare time. I have no idea what you are talking about. Working on my side projects

> But the difference is, good programmers actually LIKE to code. Even in our spare time. I have no idea what you are talking about. Working on my side projects is very very different than working for a company. As your child comment says, programming can indeed be an art. I often compare it to the musician who passionately plays their instrument at home, but makes shitty cookie-cutter jingles for advertisements. Or, a pejorative analogy that seems to be more prevalent in popular Western culture, a philosophy major intimately familiar with Cartesian duality and Berkeleian idealism who writes clickbait articles for a living. You can bet your horses that unless the company I work for creates a product that's very important to me, that I'm putting in no more than my requisite 8 hours. This ignores the host of incidental skills (mathematics, systems design, etc.) that I think a good programmer should study that "side projects" does nothing for.