A bit of all of the above. But mostly, as an artist friend put it, "keep your pencils sharpened". For the last 35 years, I have tried to write some code every d

A bit of all of the above. But mostly, as an artist friend put it, "keep your pencils sharpened". For the last 35 years, I have tried to write some code every day as a way of keeping my pencils sharpened. I wrote a Java compiler (called "lava", because the project was hot but moved slowly:) , a TCP/IP/ARP stack, an editor, a database ... whatever I wanted to learn. I didn't complete any of these hobby projects, but I have no regrets ... there's only so much time and there are so many others to start :)