In my personal experience I have found that the people that put stock in this sort of question believe in the "coder" mystique and that someone eating and breat

In my personal experience I have found that the people that put stock in this sort of question believe in the "coder" mystique and that someone eating and breathing coding is somehow more competent than someone that treats computer programming as a professional career. It is not uncommon for people to feel this about a number of professions such as chefs, bakers, graphic artists, etc. However, in my experience I prefer to judge an applicant on professional credentials rather than their free time because while it may tell me quite a bit about them it tells me little about their capabilities that I couldn't find out in better ways.