Certainly, their extra decade or more of work and life experience outweighs the inconvenience of them not programming very much in their spare time. ----------

Certainly, their extra decade or more of work and life experience outweighs the inconvenience of them not programming very much in their spare time. ------------------------------- A good developer with a decade of work/life experience would have built something in his spare time in the past ... when life wasn't always that hectic. That would work for me too, I'm sure a "I don't do a lot of programming after work now, but when I had more spare time, I did x" should suffice. Plus, its not a disqualifier ... you don't discard an interviewee just because they don't have side projects that they've done.