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If you're not passionate about coding, that advice isn't for you. There is a class of people for whom coding is 'work', as in the actual act of coding is work a

If you're not passionate about coding, that advice isn't for you. There is a class of people for whom coding is 'work', as in the actual act of coding is work and they would prefer to be doing anything else, but they have bills to pay. There is another class of developers who like to code so much, that 'work' is merely a project that they don't have directional control over, but the act of coding is a relaxing activity. I know because I'm one of them. I am pretty relaxed at work when I can just sit down and code, then I go home and if I get some free time to work on my own code, I find it relaxing too. It's not that I don't enjoy work and have to supplement with a personal project, I just like the feeling of having absolute control over the project and trying to write the best code possible, because making money or providing some shareholder value is not the goal. For people like me, I think this is a great advice. I am always thinking of side-projects that can become startups anyway, and I'm tinkering every day to the extent that time allows. I've been doing that for 20+ years. If I ever got laid off, my only hope is that at that point I will have a side-project that can magically be launched to make enough money to keep paying the bills.

shrimp_emoji 4y ago
>There is another class of developers who like to code so much, that 'work' is merely a project that they don't have directional control over, but the act of coding is a relaxing activity. I'm in the middle. Imagine you like playing football. You do it for fun. But, if you do it too much, you'll be exhausted and maybe strain a muscle or something. I code for fun, but it still wears me out; it's still a kind of "work" psychologically distinct from, and more taxing than, watching a show. The only way I would describe it as "relaxing" is if I put little-to-no thought into it, but that's how you end up with very buggy code.
mindentropy 4y ago
>There is a class of people for whom coding is 'work', as in the actual act of coding is work and they would prefer to be doing anything else, but they have bills to pay. I always see this set of people highly vocal and against people who actually like to code. It is like they have a tough time accepting that a lot of technical people love to build things.

shrimp_emoji 4y ago

>There is another class of developers who like to code so much, that 'work' is merely a project that they don't have directional control over, but the act of coding is a relaxing activity. I'm in the middle. Imagine you like playing football. You do it for fun. But, if you do it too much, you'll be exhausted and maybe strain a muscle or something. I code for fun, but it still wears me out; it's still a kind of "work" psychologically distinct from, and more taxing than, watching a show. The only way I would describe it as "relaxing" is if I put little-to-no thought into it, but that's how you end up with very buggy code.

mindentropy 4y ago

>There is a class of people for whom coding is 'work', as in the actual act of coding is work and they would prefer to be doing anything else, but they have bills to pay. I always see this set of people highly vocal and against people who actually like to code. It is like they have a tough time accepting that a lot of technical people love to build things.