8 ms·

It is perfectly OK to only code at work, you can have a life too

88 points by majikarp 7y ago

sokoloff 7y ago
Contains predictable reddit comments of never working a millisecond of unpaid time. That’s certainly a choice; there’s nothing wrong with it. OTOH, if you enjoy coding (as I do), there’s also nothing wrong with coding at home or doing the occasional extra work from home (and conversely, dicking off in the office now and then when there’s an opportunity). Many find that being flexible like this yields a better outcome for all parties.
- tenaciousDaniel 7y ago
  I just honestly enjoy doing it. I spend every saturday and sunday morning working on side projects at coffee shops - it's my favorite part of the week.
- ghaff 7y ago
  Absolutely. Aside from quite a bit of work travel which inevitably blurs the boundaries between personal time and work time (as does the fact that otherwise I mostly work from home), I generally keep work to work hours. However, as you suggest, I also generally will do a bit of work here and there if something comes up and tend to checkin on email now and then at home. Conversely, I'll run out and do a few errands on weekdays if I need to pickup groceries, etc. I know a lot of people have trouble setting boundaries for various reasons (with faults on both employer and employee sides) but overall I find flexibility can be a better deal for everyone.
- carlosrg 7y ago
  Yes, I think the key point is to know yourself, do what you truly like at leisure time, and never put yourself on pressure outside of work (for example, thinking not coding at home will make you a worse programmer, or that you're missing something). Sometimes I've not touched a line of code at home for months because I was focusing on other hobbies, like reading, that I had abandoned. No regrets. Lately I've gone back to think about possible personal projects I could do. Being flexible with yourself is important.
  - Insanity 7y ago
    This is key! It echoes my comment elsewhere in the thread quite well. Being flexible is important. You'll just end up depressing yourself if you'll force yourself to write code in your free time even when you don't want to. (Been there, done that).
    - t34543 7y ago
      If I’ve got the work scratch on my own time I turn to learning. It can benefit me long term, and perhaps score me some cred at work in the short term.
Waterluvian 7y ago
When I don't do any coding over the weekend, my coding tasks on Monday are far more fun. Which is difficult because I love messing around with my own little programs and games.
- ehnto 7y ago
  That was my issue. I do love what I do, but I was doing it so much at work that I didn't have energy for my passion projects. When I was trying to do both, I loved neither. So I had to rebalance things to reach a happier median.
megablast 7y ago
I don't get this. It is like being an accomplished painter, but never painting anything for yourself. Or a carpenter, and not making your own table or chairs. As a coder, you have the ability to create almost anything. How can that knowledge not tempt you to create something yourself?
- ghaff 7y ago
  I'm not sure I would take "only" in that case too literally. There are a lot of people who genuinely do enjoy programming but get quite enough of it at work, thank you very much. In my case I do a lot of writing (words) for work and like doing it--among other things that are part of my job. That doesn't mean I spend every night working on writing the great American novel--though I do know writers at work who also do that sort of thing. (I actually do some unrelated personal writing but not a huge amount.) There are also people for whom coding really is just a job. It puts food on the table. They enjoy/tolerate it well enough for what it pays. But it's not something they want to do as a hobby. ADDED: People can do whatever they want in their spare time. But, not to pick on you, the belief in many corners of tech that writing software must be some all-consuming passion is unhealthy.
  - onemoresoop 7y ago
    > the belief in many corners of tech that writing software must be some all-consuming passion is unhealthy. To add to this, it’s not only unhealthy but leads one away from the concrete reality we live in and this results to out of touch thinking.
- elcomet 7y ago
  What if I love other stuff more than coding ? Like climbing, or cooking,... Don't assume every developer loves coding. I didn't meet any developer who hated coding, usually they like it, but loving it as a hobby is a different thing.
- auspex 7y ago
  A lot of times people have invention assignment agreements which make it really hard to have their own independent projects.
gregf 7y ago
If you don't have the desire to do this after work you probably shouldn't even be in the field is how I look at it.
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  Maybe people enjoy programming enough to make it their job, but to go home and relax afterwards? Who wants to do the same thing 24/7?
  - arvinsim 7y ago
    It's not even about wanting to do it. Doing anything on the metaphorical 24/7 will burn people out.
    - Lazare 7y ago
      Yeah. I quite enjoy programming, and I'm quite good at it; as a result I quite enjoy my job and I get paid quite a lot. I'm very lucky! And to help protect that, I carefully limit the amount of programming I do outside of work hours. The last thing I want is to burn out and stop enjoying my job! And also, there's an enormous number of enjoyable things in life (family, friends, crafts, etc.). Diversifying my hobbies is win/win. I don't judge people who focus purely on programming, but I do suspect that they may find their views change over time.
  - talonx 7y ago
    While I don't think the OP meant 24/7, I think the point remains that coding outside working hours is a choice borne purely out of personal interest. Having this interest is fine - maybe it makes you a better programmer or maybe it does not. Not having this interest is _also_ fine - and saying that people who don't have it are unfit to be in the field is just sitting on a high horse and looking down at others.
    - cameronbrown 7y ago
      I just think if you enjoy programming in work, having it outside of work too risks ruining both your hobby and your job if you get burned out.
salex89 7y ago
I really wanted to code my own side projects in my spare time. I always have so much ideas that I become anxious when will I have time for them all. But during my spare time, which I would like to designate to my own projects, life kicks in. Something breaks, an old friend is back in town, I don't feel well, there is a recipe I want to try or my girlfriend and I want to have a day outdoors because we didn't have enough quality time together during the week. Then Sunday evening comes and I become sad because I'm far behind my own plans. But the most important thing I was missing is thet I actually enjoy stuff beyond coding. I was so concentrated on it that I stopped being thankful for all of the detours that make my life complete and meaningful. Tonight I'm going to change the mixer tap at my folks home, and I'm glad I'll make them happy and life a bit more comfortable. My buddy is back, so latter were going out for drinks, we're gonna have a ball. And I actually love those things, it's refreshing. Yes I would like to brush up on some fresher skills or try out the latest AWS Blazefeather. And I will eventually. But I realized that other stuff in life makes me also a calm and enjoyable person, and personality and temper is also a part of an engineers value.
- onemoresoop 7y ago
  If I were an employer I’d like to see a healthy life outside of work on a prospective hire. Mental health is a great factor in work productivity too
Insanity 7y ago
It fluctuates for me, which I think is normal. I enjoy programming a lot - it was a hobby before a profession. I enjoy learning programming languages and puzzling things out. But sometimes I don't want to code at home - I have other hobbies, a wife, friends, .. that I'd rather do something with. But I do find that after a certain time I'll miss programming for fun. It used to bother me when I lost motivation to work on side-projects or to learn new things. But after losing and regaining the motivation often enough, I now figure it's just a cyclical thing. I might be on a day out with my wife and suddenly think of something I want to learn and continue spending several weeks learning or building it. Only to find myself without a project again for several weeks and enjoying going to the movies, gaming, citytrips... The only thing which I do believe is that if you have absolutely no interest in learning new things - in your own time or in paid time - it's going to be hard to keep up with the evolving industry. But I could be wrong, we still have the cobol cowboys... :)
jasode 7y ago
>It is perfectly OK to only code at work, you can have a life too That short life-affirming quote structured like a pithy aphorism is hiding the true debate that motivates it. The real discussion before that quote is this: Some employers prefer programmers that like programming outside of work. For the other programmers that would rather constrain coding work to 40 hours a week, they feel that employer preference is unfair. So yes, of course it's fine to want to do non-coding activities outside of work... but that's not what the real frustration is about. Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do to prevent some employers for preferring coders who code outside of work. It's been that way for decades. On the other hand, some employers don't care about personal coding projects so that culture may be a better fit.
- arvinsim 7y ago
  I believe hiring decisions are employers perogative. What I do appreciate is them being honest and upfront about it so that I don't waste time pursuing a job that might not fit me.
  - PopeDotNinja 7y ago
    That works until their cumulative prerogatives shut you out of your chosen career because they're discriminating against you. Discrimination is simply avoiding the thing you don't prefer because you have a preference for something else. If you discriminate against enough people, it becomes a problem for people who don't fit into your prerogative.
    - sametmax 7y ago
      Given that the market is so unbalanced in favor of programmers, and will keep being that way for the next 10 years, that's hardly an issue.
    - jpd- 7y ago
      The entire hiring process is an act of discrimination. What's the alternative? Hire everybody that applies?
- 7y ago
djhworld 7y ago
I guess coding outside of work does allow you to explore things that you might not get a chance to in the day job, which in turn might help with interview situations.
peteretep 7y ago
If you’re not sufficiently excited about programming that you want to spend your free time doing it, that’s fine. But don’t expect technical employers to be all that excited by you.
- mikeash 7y ago
  If you think excitement indicates skill to the extent that you want to base your hiring on it, that’s fine, but don’t expect skilled programmers to be all that interested in working for you.
- Viliam1234 7y ago
  Yeah, if you have a family, you are probably not sufficiently dedicated to your job anyway. And if you only have a girlfriend, if she truly loves you, she will certainly understand that you don't want to waste your precious free time with her. It's all about priorities.
amthewiz 7y ago
The field of software engineering changes rapidly and is complex to master. To remain good at the job, one must continue to explore and learn. The only way that is going to happen is if you are genuinely interested in the field. The best indicator of that is that you have pet projects outside of work.
grumpy8 7y ago
tech is moving so fast, if you're not learning in your spare time, you'll quickly fall behind. That doesn't mean that you won't be able to find a job though
- ryandrake 7y ago
  This is a commonly held belief but I don’t think it’s true. There is a lot of surface-level technical turnover in software. A lot of “new framework-of-the-month” churn. A lot of project management/methodology fads: Agile and Pair Programming and Test-driven development. The tooling changes slightly every so often. But the fundamental principles and techniques of good software engineering have not changed in decades. Take a good productive software developer 30 years ago, and time travel him/her here today and they will be productive with very little ramp-up. A bad software developer from 30 years ago will be bad today too. Learning for its own sake is great, but don’t actively try to create and get on an unnecessary treadmill.
slfnflctd 7y ago
There are people who used to write code at home for their own personal projects and really enjoyed it, but have become too busy, tired, disillusioned or whatever else to keep it going these days. There are also people who never could think of anything they wanted to build, but nonetheless liked coding for school better than doing a lot of other things, and got good at it. If I was interviewing a person who told me they have never created anything that wasn't for school or a paycheck, it would definitely bother me-- but I would still do my best to look objectively at the quality of their work. After all, there are many skilled electricians and plumbers who don't use their skills in their own homes unless they have an annoying problem they can fix easily.

88 points by majikarp 7y ago

Contains predictable reddit comments of never working a millisecond of unpaid time. That’s certainly a choice; there’s nothing wrong with it. OTOH, if you enjoy coding (as I do), there’s also nothing wrong with coding at home or doing the occasional extra work from home (and conversely, dicking off in the office now and then when there’s an opportunity). Many find that being flexible like this yields a better outcome for all parties.

tenaciousDaniel 7y ago
I just honestly enjoy doing it. I spend every saturday and sunday morning working on side projects at coffee shops - it's my favorite part of the week.
ghaff 7y ago
Absolutely. Aside from quite a bit of work travel which inevitably blurs the boundaries between personal time and work time (as does the fact that otherwise I mostly work from home), I generally keep work to work hours. However, as you suggest, I also generally will do a bit of work here and there if something comes up and tend to checkin on email now and then at home. Conversely, I'll run out and do a few errands on weekdays if I need to pickup groceries, etc. I know a lot of people have trouble setting boundaries for various reasons (with faults on both employer and employee sides) but overall I find flexibility can be a better deal for everyone.
carlosrg 7y ago
Yes, I think the key point is to know yourself, do what you truly like at leisure time, and never put yourself on pressure outside of work (for example, thinking not coding at home will make you a worse programmer, or that you're missing something). Sometimes I've not touched a line of code at home for months because I was focusing on other hobbies, like reading, that I had abandoned. No regrets. Lately I've gone back to think about possible personal projects I could do. Being flexible with yourself is important.
- Insanity 7y ago
  This is key! It echoes my comment elsewhere in the thread quite well. Being flexible is important. You'll just end up depressing yourself if you'll force yourself to write code in your free time even when you don't want to. (Been there, done that).
  - t34543 7y ago
    If I’ve got the work scratch on my own time I turn to learning. It can benefit me long term, and perhaps score me some cred at work in the short term.

Waterluvian 7y ago

When I don't do any coding over the weekend, my coding tasks on Monday are far more fun. Which is difficult because I love messing around with my own little programs and games.

ehnto 7y ago
That was my issue. I do love what I do, but I was doing it so much at work that I didn't have energy for my passion projects. When I was trying to do both, I loved neither. So I had to rebalance things to reach a happier median.

megablast 7y ago

I don't get this. It is like being an accomplished painter, but never painting anything for yourself. Or a carpenter, and not making your own table or chairs. As a coder, you have the ability to create almost anything. How can that knowledge not tempt you to create something yourself?

ghaff 7y ago
I'm not sure I would take "only" in that case too literally. There are a lot of people who genuinely do enjoy programming but get quite enough of it at work, thank you very much. In my case I do a lot of writing (words) for work and like doing it--among other things that are part of my job. That doesn't mean I spend every night working on writing the great American novel--though I do know writers at work who also do that sort of thing. (I actually do some unrelated personal writing but not a huge amount.) There are also people for whom coding really is just a job. It puts food on the table. They enjoy/tolerate it well enough for what it pays. But it's not something they want to do as a hobby. ADDED: People can do whatever they want in their spare time. But, not to pick on you, the belief in many corners of tech that writing software must be some all-consuming passion is unhealthy.
- onemoresoop 7y ago
  > the belief in many corners of tech that writing software must be some all-consuming passion is unhealthy. To add to this, it’s not only unhealthy but leads one away from the concrete reality we live in and this results to out of touch thinking.
elcomet 7y ago
What if I love other stuff more than coding ? Like climbing, or cooking,... Don't assume every developer loves coding. I didn't meet any developer who hated coding, usually they like it, but loving it as a hobby is a different thing.
auspex 7y ago
A lot of times people have invention assignment agreements which make it really hard to have their own independent projects.

gregf 7y ago

If you don't have the desire to do this after work you probably shouldn't even be in the field is how I look at it.

cameronbrown 7y ago
Maybe people enjoy programming enough to make it their job, but to go home and relax afterwards? Who wants to do the same thing 24/7?
- arvinsim 7y ago
  It's not even about wanting to do it. Doing anything on the metaphorical 24/7 will burn people out.
  - Lazare 7y ago
    Yeah. I quite enjoy programming, and I'm quite good at it; as a result I quite enjoy my job and I get paid quite a lot. I'm very lucky! And to help protect that, I carefully limit the amount of programming I do outside of work hours. The last thing I want is to burn out and stop enjoying my job! And also, there's an enormous number of enjoyable things in life (family, friends, crafts, etc.). Diversifying my hobbies is win/win. I don't judge people who focus purely on programming, but I do suspect that they may find their views change over time.
- talonx 7y ago
  While I don't think the OP meant 24/7, I think the point remains that coding outside working hours is a choice borne purely out of personal interest. Having this interest is fine - maybe it makes you a better programmer or maybe it does not. Not having this interest is _also_ fine - and saying that people who don't have it are unfit to be in the field is just sitting on a high horse and looking down at others.
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    I just think if you enjoy programming in work, having it outside of work too risks ruining both your hobby and your job if you get burned out.

salex89 7y ago

I really wanted to code my own side projects in my spare time. I always have so much ideas that I become anxious when will I have time for them all. But during my spare time, which I would like to designate to my own projects, life kicks in. Something breaks, an old friend is back in town, I don't feel well, there is a recipe I want to try or my girlfriend and I want to have a day outdoors because we didn't have enough quality time together during the week. Then Sunday evening comes and I become sad because I'm far behind my own plans. But the most important thing I was missing is thet I actually enjoy stuff beyond coding. I was so concentrated on it that I stopped being thankful for all of the detours that make my life complete and meaningful. Tonight I'm going to change the mixer tap at my folks home, and I'm glad I'll make them happy and life a bit more comfortable. My buddy is back, so latter were going out for drinks, we're gonna have a ball. And I actually love those things, it's refreshing. Yes I would like to brush up on some fresher skills or try out the latest AWS Blazefeather. And I will eventually. But I realized that other stuff in life makes me also a calm and enjoyable person, and personality and temper is also a part of an engineers value.

onemoresoop 7y ago
If I were an employer I’d like to see a healthy life outside of work on a prospective hire. Mental health is a great factor in work productivity too

Insanity 7y ago

It fluctuates for me, which I think is normal. I enjoy programming a lot - it was a hobby before a profession. I enjoy learning programming languages and puzzling things out. But sometimes I don't want to code at home - I have other hobbies, a wife, friends, .. that I'd rather do something with. But I do find that after a certain time I'll miss programming for fun. It used to bother me when I lost motivation to work on side-projects or to learn new things. But after losing and regaining the motivation often enough, I now figure it's just a cyclical thing. I might be on a day out with my wife and suddenly think of something I want to learn and continue spending several weeks learning or building it. Only to find myself without a project again for several weeks and enjoying going to the movies, gaming, citytrips... The only thing which I do believe is that if you have absolutely no interest in learning new things - in your own time or in paid time - it's going to be hard to keep up with the evolving industry. But I could be wrong, we still have the cobol cowboys... :)

jasode 7y ago

>It is perfectly OK to only code at work, you can have a life too That short life-affirming quote structured like a pithy aphorism is hiding the true debate that motivates it. The real discussion before that quote is this: Some employers prefer programmers that like programming outside of work. For the other programmers that would rather constrain coding work to 40 hours a week, they feel that employer preference is unfair. So yes, of course it's fine to want to do non-coding activities outside of work... but that's not what the real frustration is about. Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do to prevent some employers for preferring coders who code outside of work. It's been that way for decades. On the other hand, some employers don't care about personal coding projects so that culture may be a better fit.

arvinsim 7y ago
I believe hiring decisions are employers perogative. What I do appreciate is them being honest and upfront about it so that I don't waste time pursuing a job that might not fit me.
- PopeDotNinja 7y ago
  That works until their cumulative prerogatives shut you out of your chosen career because they're discriminating against you. Discrimination is simply avoiding the thing you don't prefer because you have a preference for something else. If you discriminate against enough people, it becomes a problem for people who don't fit into your prerogative.
  - sametmax 7y ago
    Given that the market is so unbalanced in favor of programmers, and will keep being that way for the next 10 years, that's hardly an issue.
  - jpd- 7y ago
    The entire hiring process is an act of discrimination. What's the alternative? Hire everybody that applies?
7y ago

djhworld 7y ago

I guess coding outside of work does allow you to explore things that you might not get a chance to in the day job, which in turn might help with interview situations.

peteretep 7y ago

If you’re not sufficiently excited about programming that you want to spend your free time doing it, that’s fine. But don’t expect technical employers to be all that excited by you.

mikeash 7y ago
If you think excitement indicates skill to the extent that you want to base your hiring on it, that’s fine, but don’t expect skilled programmers to be all that interested in working for you.
Viliam1234 7y ago
Yeah, if you have a family, you are probably not sufficiently dedicated to your job anyway. And if you only have a girlfriend, if she truly loves you, she will certainly understand that you don't want to waste your precious free time with her. It's all about priorities.

amthewiz 7y ago

The field of software engineering changes rapidly and is complex to master. To remain good at the job, one must continue to explore and learn. The only way that is going to happen is if you are genuinely interested in the field. The best indicator of that is that you have pet projects outside of work.

grumpy8 7y ago

tech is moving so fast, if you're not learning in your spare time, you'll quickly fall behind. That doesn't mean that you won't be able to find a job though

ryandrake 7y ago
This is a commonly held belief but I don’t think it’s true. There is a lot of surface-level technical turnover in software. A lot of “new framework-of-the-month” churn. A lot of project management/methodology fads: Agile and Pair Programming and Test-driven development. The tooling changes slightly every so often. But the fundamental principles and techniques of good software engineering have not changed in decades. Take a good productive software developer 30 years ago, and time travel him/her here today and they will be productive with very little ramp-up. A bad software developer from 30 years ago will be bad today too. Learning for its own sake is great, but don’t actively try to create and get on an unnecessary treadmill.

slfnflctd 7y ago

There are people who used to write code at home for their own personal projects and really enjoyed it, but have become too busy, tired, disillusioned or whatever else to keep it going these days. There are also people who never could think of anything they wanted to build, but nonetheless liked coding for school better than doing a lot of other things, and got good at it. If I was interviewing a person who told me they have never created anything that wasn't for school or a paycheck, it would definitely bother me-- but I would still do my best to look objectively at the quality of their work. After all, there are many skilled electricians and plumbers who don't use their skills in their own homes unless they have an annoying problem they can fix easily.