I don't know if you're young, obviously, but this is a young, or at least unattached, person's point of view. I taught myself to program in the 80's when I was in my early 20's. In my later 20's and through my early 30's I did it for fun and profit, often working on a project 14 or more hours a day. By the time I got into my early 40's I had a wife, three young children, a house, a couple of pets, etc. to go along with the job. Suddenly, or perhaps not so suddenly, there were a great many demands on my 18 hours per day of waking time. Unless you're different from most people this is how it will likely proceed with you as well. So one way of looking at this mantra is "we want young, unattached people who will throw themselves into their work and not coincidentally do it for less money than a middle-aged person with a family."

I know what it feels like to have a lot of demands on your time when you're combining a family, a job and hobby projects. At one point something ends up always having to give, and typically it's the hobby projects.

I found this passage from the works of Thich Nhat Hanh very helpful to deal with that, YMMV.

“Then Allen said, “I’ve discovered a way to have a lot more time. In the past, I used to look at my time as if it were divided into several parts. One part I reserved for Joey, another part was for Sue, another part to help with Ana, another part for household work. The time left over I considered my own. I could read, write, do research, go for walks. But now I try not to divide time into parts anymore. I consider my time with Joey and Sue as my own time. When I help Joey with his homework, I try to find ways of seeing his time as my own time. I go through his lesson with him, sharing his presence and finding ways to be interested in what we do during that time. The time for him becomes my own time. The same with Sue. The remarkable thing is that now I have unlimited time for myself!”

25. I have a wife and kids whom I spend a lot of time with. Most of my free personal time is slacking off.

I often find myself wishing I had more time to collect my thoughts and program things I want to program. I don't have the time to do all the things I want to, while keeping a healthy balance in my life - and that's OK.

But I still connect with the mantra - because that's who I am as a person. I code. I think about coding. I enjoy coding.

I was a gardener until I was 25. I hated it. My father is still a gardener and he loves it. I am 35 now an I eat sleep and live software and I love it. Although I do try to work on l my own projects in my own time. I have 2 young kids and admit I find the balance hard. If you love what you do then it often doesn't feel like work, but like a hobby that you also get paid for. You see this is sports and many other vocations not just software.

Were you a gardener, as in Master Gardener? I imagine that's a bit different of a job than a Landscaper or Yard Maintenance type of position. Having known lawn mowers/maintainers, and landscapers galore (most of whom hated their jobs), but only one Master Gardener (who loved their job), I gotta think they are very distinct positions.

The other phrases (like rave or game) is fun because it represent a dream as in wishing one could only do that. "Eat, sleep, code, repeat" is very much something you can do while working at Google or any other tech company. In fact you might even be, essentially, forced to do it during "crunch mode". It's not a dream, it's a nightmare.

I get that some marketing person thought it would be funny, but work/life balance is and should be a serious subject for developers. This is "real life shit" that decides what relationships you have with your friends, family and colleagues, where you end up living in the future, if you have kids, keep your health, are happy, don't die alone etc.

So is game to video game testers - often even worse off than our industry when it's crunch time - and far less respected.

It's about how you view it. View it as job and it sucks. View it as hobby, and it's fine.

Just like Gaming

I also feel that way; in the sense that to me at least in this point of my life coding doesn't really feel like work but rather something that is a hobby, a game and a way to create value for others and myself. I do have to make time to work out again though.