> Pure fun. Well... that gets quite different when you do it in a professional context. I'd say there is more pressure than in pure software development. 1. T

> Pure fun. Well... that gets quite different when you do it in a professional context. I'd say there is more pressure than in pure software development. 1. The deadlines are harder. You cannot really ship a half-baked product and tell yourself you'll ship an update every week after. This is of course even more true if you are on the hardware side. 2. The pressure is higher. Because of point 1, you have more pressure to get things right on the first launch. You also have to deal with the intertwined timeline of the hardware design and manufacturing. And the money involved is arguably higher, so a failure can represent a big hit for the company. 3. The final product is a bit more likely to have a real use. That gives a better sense of purpose, but it can come with a greater moral responsibility (it depends on individuals, of course). You may not carry the same weight for the Nth rewrite of a random advertising webapp and for a critical safety related device (to take extreme examples). And now after you've overcome all this, you get thanked by being paid half what the advertising software developers get ;-)