And this is problem with our industry. I have friends that are mechanical or electrical engineers, very good ones, and they do not spend their non-working hours doing engineering. If their work requires them to learn something new, their employers actually give them the time and money to learn that skill, rather than just expecting them to learn it in their spare time.

When I first came into software 16 years ago, I did do a lot of "programming for fun" in my off hours, but I also came into the industry with no formal education in software engineering. Once I got out of the start-up world about 10 years ago, I discovered that my employers would allow me keep up with industry trends on company time, and while I still may hack a bit on things outside of work if something interesting intrigues me, I generally avoid doing any programming in my off hours and instead investment my time in other things.

Lol no. If I'm coding it's not free time, and if I'm coding to learn it's professional development, not recreation. "Coding is a lifestyle" is such a scam.

Hackathons? Have you ever just wanted to write a web scraper in a new language to see how it is different from your usual? Never coded a small video game?

Why are you a programmer then?

What about an accountant? Ever quiz them or deride them for not going out of their way to balance budgets and crunch numbers for family & friends?

Why is programming this anomaly to people where there's a necessity for you to want to spend your personal hours doing what you do for 40 hours a week (or more for many) professionally? If you don't make your life entirely centered around your career you're obviously not a real programmer despite many people having lives outside their career still being extremely talented and successful.

I think it's a lie we tell ourselves and perpetuate. People who sold their lives to programming expect to surround themselves with others who've done the same. You end up on the hiring side of an interview and you want the candidates to have a portfolio of personal projects to show off because that's what shows dedication. I get along best with the coworkers I have that have a wide variety of interests because they're not a bore to talk to and get a beer with. Jobs in the middle of nowhere are far more tolerable with those who you can stand to be cramped in a room with for two weeks rather than the guy who can only relate with RocketLeague anecdotes.

We need to recognize that programming is a creative craft and the norm for those is to do it as a hobby.

Most musicians, including "professional" ones, play for fun as well. As do dancers, poets, writers, artists, etc.

Do you think most academics leave "work," go home and never think about their research again?

I have no problem with people who somehow decided to program despite not enjoying it enough to do it in their free time. But they shouldn't attack those of us who do for daring to spend our free time in a pleasurable way. And they should accept that there's a simple reality that those of us who enjoy it are going to spend more time at it and thus level up more quickly.

These make no sense. There's a huge, huge difference between building an addition to your house and building additions on all your friends' houses. I like to do all the maintenance on my own car, and I'll do it on my spouse's car, but I'm not about to volunteer to do maintenance on all my friends' cars too unless they're having a real hardship and need a little help to get out of a bind. I may know how to work on cars, but that doesn't mean I have infinite time to help everyone I know with theirs; there's other stuff I'd like to do with my spare time. If a carpenter has no interest in doing any carpenter-ing on his own personal house, that doesn't sound like a top-notch carpenter to me. I knew a guy not too long ago who was a carpenter/woodworker, and he absolutely did have a bunch of stuff in his house that he had made himself.

For an accountant, I would really hope that a decent accountant would want to do a great job balancing their own personal household budget for their family. If you're an accountant but you can't manage your own family's finances, then I wouldn't want to hire you. But that again doesn't mean you have infinite time to balance budgets for all your friends and extended family.

If a guy is a plumber but then calls another plumber when he has a leaky pipe, instead of just fixing it himself, what does that say about his professional abilities? If someone is an auto mechanic but doesn't even do his own auto maintenance and repair, what does that say about his abilities?

If someone is a professional and passionate about their career and work, then I absolutely do expect them to carry that into their off-hours to some extent. I would not expect them, however, to spend all their free time doing free work for all the people in their life. But I absolutely do expect them to make use of their skills for themselves and their own household. I'll make an exception for dentists, however (just for themselves).

We should really make an effort to try to accommodate the people in the programming profession who do not want to spend their free time coding on projects. Programming is very, very enjoyable (to me), but I have a family with which I want to spend as much time as possible. Do I want to write a web-scraper in rust in my free time? Sure it sounds like a nice exercise. Would I rather spend that time with my kids? Yes.

That stuff can be as fulfilling as cleaning the house/having sex/shooting guns/dancing but it's only happening on company time-- Especially when the terms of my contract essentially give my company ownership of anything I write. Also, 8-12h per day of any one activity is enough

I don't usually "code for fun". Sure, I like the feeling of accomplishing a task or solving a problem, but overall I don't generally enjoy programming enough that I would want to try something just "to see how it is different from your usual". I won't say I never write small programs or try new techniques; that's an exaggeration.

I call this job my "bronze handcuffs": other jobs pay substantially less, are more physically dangerous, and are more susceptible to being consumed by automation. So it makes sense to keep doing what I'm doing.

I also suspect many academic professions fall into this trap as well: mathematician, physicist, etc.

As a developer myself, I don't think this particular aspect is unique, instead I think it's a matter of perspective and what we value in life.

For example, many individuals if they see someone reading a phone as they're walking may look unfavourably upon them thinking something like "people glued to their phones, bleargh". However, if the same individual was walking reading a paper book instead, many would simply shrug it off as "that person is a studious individual / bookworm".

Well, if I'm an artist, there's probably not a clear line between "work" and "hobby" unless you are regularly commissioned to create specific works (and even then, unless you're painting portraits, you probably have some freedom in your choices). Photography might be an edge case, as you may do journalism by day and some form of art photography by night.

I suspect, however, that other engineers (mechanical, electrical, chemical, etc) don't have to spend their evenings doing engineering work to stay sharp.