I'm not sure I would take "only" in that case too literally. There are a lot of people who genuinely do enjoy programming but get quite enough of it at work, thank you very much. In my case I do a lot of writing (words) for work and like doing it--among other things that are part of my job. That doesn't mean I spend every night working on writing the great American novel--though I do know writers at work who also do that sort of thing.

(I actually do some unrelated personal writing but not a huge amount.)

There are also people for whom coding really is just a job. It puts food on the table. They enjoy/tolerate it well enough for what it pays. But it's not something they want to do as a hobby.

ADDED: People can do whatever they want in their spare time. But, not to pick on you, the belief in many corners of tech that writing software must be some all-consuming passion is unhealthy.

> the belief in many corners of tech that writing software must be some all-consuming passion is unhealthy.

To add to this, it’s not only unhealthy but leads one away from the concrete reality we live in and this results to out of touch thinking.

I dont know about carpenters but car mechanics are known to have a pretty crappy car themselves. It’s a generality ofc, but that says something on its own. I personally think noone should look at the personal life other people. There are countless examples of people who despite being good and productive employees, their pesonal life wouldn’t indicate such. Also, from my exprience, since I started coding for a living i found myself wanting to fill my life with something else outside the 40 weekly hours spent in front of a computer. Wanting is not always possible but a desired tendency.

> As a coder, you have the ability to create almost anything. How can that knowledge not tempt you to create something yourself?

Oh, it definitely does, but...

The stuff I wrote during school, in Turbo Pascal, is just too old and completely unrelated to what I do for living now.

I also have hobbies other than programming. Since I started spending 8 hours a day coding at work, I usually spend my afternoons doing the other things that interest me. When else should I be doing them?

And now I have small kids, so there is almost no free time anyway.

The projects I did in previous jobs, I don't own the code. I was never paid to work on an open-source project.

...and this is why I don't have anything to show you on Github. Not because I don't care about programming, but because I also have a life. (Perhaps that is a competitive disadvantage. Well, I can still find a job regardless.)

Yeah, I could choose to just ignore everything for a few weeks or months, and build something on Github instead, just to get that extra point at an interview, but it would feel like building a Potemkin village. Unless really necessary, I would prefer not to do that. I hope this makes sense.

Because I'd rather help someone else make their thing. For me it's not an ego trip, but rather a way to contribute to someone else. I happen to be good at it, and it happens that a lot of people will pay me good money to do it. I think what you're really asking when you get down to it is "Why do other people have to have different motivations than me? It's weird that we're not all the same. How can you be any good if you're not exactly like me?"

My greatest accomplishments were all done as paid work for other people and I'm very proud that they could build a successful business with the things I've created.

I'm not terribly interested in going into business for myself because A) I suck at it and B) it's just not that interesting for me. I'd rather someone else take on the risk of having a cool idea and the knowledge to run a business and let me help them get the technical side under control. That's what I'm good at.

Programming is not by itself an art, so it doesn't fulfill people's self-expression needs (although it may contain bits of art like e.g. video games).

You cannot create "almost anything" with coding, it's not like I can bake fries by typing some code.

I do not write this in jest, I just find that people tend to overestimate coding.

I think coding is different things to different people. So sometimes it’s hard to sync up and have a useful conversation.

I believe you can create anything with coding. You can automate home routines. You can figure how the best dose of vitamins and supplements. You can optimize finances. It’s pretty limitless. Not to mention staring at a screen, giving it commands and seeing the result for hours just being fun. In both a meditative way and a discovering secrets way.

But for many people, it’s a job and not interesting in and of itself.

Someone mentioned painting and there are painters who make art and do it for expression. And there are painters who paint houses. They are both fine professions and really just a choice or an orientation. I don’t do either, but I think the artist painter will do lots of side projects outside her studio while the house painter is less likely to paint too many houses pro bono.

This doesn’t mean programmers who code outside of work are superior humans. I think any company who has this as a binary hiring decision is missing out that there are great programmers who don’t do it out of passion. I once worked with a programmer who didn’t own a computer (in 2005) and he was good. And there are hobby programmers who suck at work even though they have lots of personal projects.

> I believe you can create anything with coding. You can automate home routines. You can figure how the best dose of vitamins and supplements. You can optimize finances. It’s pretty limitless. Not to mention staring at a screen, giving it commands and seeing the result for hours just being fun. In both a meditative way and a discovering secrets way.

> But for many people, it’s a job and not interesting in and of itself.

I am one of those people who want to only code at work. I also enjoy programming a lot.

My problem with "coding for fun" for me is that anything interesting that I want to build gets tedious after the initial, easy and fun parts are implemented. I end up trying to fix edge cases and debug hard to fix bugs.

At that point it feels like a chore to do.

> This doesn’t mean programmers who code outside of work are superior humans. I think any company who has this as a binary hiring decision is missing out that there are great programmers who don’t do it out of passion. I once worked with a programmer who didn’t own a computer (in 2005) and he was good. And there are hobby programmers who suck at work even though they have lots of personal projects.

Exactly. People who want to do something else don't go around demeaning people who code in their free time. But the opposite does happen.

> it's not like I can bake fries by typing some code.

I mean, you'd need hardware, but cooking based on software is obviously a very real thing.

If you can code a bartender, why not a baker? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DopvpNF7J4

To me, coding is more of an art. There are beauty and expression in it, not just a bunch of syntax put together.

Programming by itself can also be an art. It fit the definition of art.

What if I love other stuff more than coding ? Like climbing, or cooking,...

Don't assume every developer loves coding. I didn't meet any developer who hated coding, usually they like it, but loving it as a hobby is a different thing.

I just can’t find anything nearly as interesting to do in my own time as what I do at work. Sure, I could build stuff for myself, but it’s kind of boring!

A lot of times people have invention assignment agreements which make it really hard to have their own independent projects.

Is this actually enforceable though? Asking for a friend.

I'm sure it depends on local laws but, in many cases, absolutely if the company wants to try to enforce it. At a minimum, they can make you spend a lot of money on lawyers.

Exactly. It’s not worth it to even find out. Every company I’ve worked for over the last decade or so has been very clear during orientation: they own everything you create, within or outside working hours, and using their equipment or your own equipment. Taking the risk to find out whether they will enforce it would mean spending $$$ that I don’t have on lawyers.

Absolutely, in fact many employment agreements have wording that puts you in violation of your agreement if you don't disclose your ideas immediately in writing.

This honestly comes off as a bit superior. It makes sense when people are like how you've described - it doesn't not make sense when they are not.