If you're serious, the way I look at it is that people like you are one of the problems with tech culture. Way too many people in tech have this attitude that there's something exceptional and unique about it that requires participants to be all-in 24 hours a day. It's not. And this sort of attitude discourages a large swath of the population from bringing their talents to the field.

>people like you are one of the problems with tech culture

And that's any kind of way to talk to someone?! I don't think so.

I was very surprised that the only downvoted comments on this page currently are by people who apparently don't understand how if you love programming, you never do it outside work. On Hacker News! Repeatedly on this page I've seen the total straw man response like yours of "requires participants to be all-in 24 hours a day". No-one's suggesting that. I don't understand how that seems an appropriate or adequate reply.

>And this sort of attitude discourages a large swath of the population from bringing their talents to the field.

I don't know what you mean there.

> And that's any kind of way to talk to someone?! I don't think so.

I think the attitude being expressed is one of the problems with tech culture. If the person honestly holds that attitude, does that not make him part of the problem? There's not a lot of nice ways to describe people who hold problematic views.

> I've seen the total straw man response like yours of "requires participants to be all-in 24 hours a day". No-one's suggesting that.

It's a metaphor. Nobody may be suggesting literal 24 hour days, but plenty of people are suggesting that you should code outside of the standard work week.

> > And this sort of attitude discourages a large swath of the population from bringing their talents to the field.

> I don't know what you mean there.

Not the guy you asked, but I think I know what he was getting at. Some people have commitments (family, children, etc.) or health issues that makes this sort of commitment infeasible, or come from different backgrounds. Expecting a github profile with a lot of personal projects does filter out a lot of people who might be very capable of showing up, doing the job, and going home.

Yes. That is exactly what I meant.

I'd just add that, on the subject of strawmen, I'm pretty sure not a single person on this thread has suggested that people shouldn't do software-related things on their own time if that's what they want to do--with the only caveats being care about burnout and possible employee agreements around IP rights. They just shouldn't be de facto required to do so.

And, yes, I do think the view as expressed is extremely toxic. The underlying attitude is bad enough but to basically say if you don't have time/interest to be working on Github repos on nights and weekends you should GTFO of tech is... well, problematic is a nice way of putting it.

>They just shouldn't be de facto required to do so.

I haven't read anybody saying you should be required to if you don't want to. Yet a lot of the responses are angry as if that's exactly what was suggested.

The line I quoted about "people like you", I was mainly objecting to reading one sentence from someone, responding with "people like you.." and thinking that's ok. You don't know anything about them, I assume. Imagine someone speaking to you like that? Or maybe that's how people routinely speak to each other in your world, and it's perfectly fine. I hope not.

The comment ghaff replied to said "If you don't have the desire to do this after work you probably shouldn't even be in the field".

If people that do not want to do it shouldn't be in the field, it's pretty damn close to a requirement.

Well, I guess it's just reading the comment two entirely different ways. The way I read it, it sounds like someone who loves programming, not being able to imagine how you would never want to program outside work–not 24 hours a day, but never at all. You know, for the fun of it.

You make it sound like the guy is your boss, making it a requirement for employment that people do programming they don't want to do outside work hours.

The guy said "probably" and "is how I look at it", but that wasn't enough–the words are still treated like he'd said "definitely" and "I'd make this a legal requirement" or something. Ah anyway.

Things don't have to be legal requirements to effectively be requirements. I'd hate to be considered not fit for tech by my coworkers, my boss, a potential employer, ... because of how I like to spend my free time, and if that sentiment is common it is a problem for people not fitting that expectation. Which I think is be bad, even if I personally would benefit from it. And you see people push others out with arguments like this, it's not a theoretical thing. (I'm not saying the original commenter is doing so, but explaining why I read the comment as negatively as I did)

It’s not a nice way to talk to someone but the original comment was also extremely rude. They basically told a significant chunk of the people reading this side that they aren’t worthy of the career they’ve chosen. That’s deeply insulting and it’s no surprise it gets an unpleasant response.

>If you don't have the desire to do this after work you probably shouldn't even be in the field is how I look at it.

That's extremely rude? Deeply insulting? I don't understand. So touchy. The guy isn't allowed to have that opinion, or express it? Why not allow people to have their own opinion? ..What if you read, say, Stallman or Linus or [insert your programmer hero here] saying the same thing, would you think it was extremely rude and deeply insulting?

Am I not allowed to have my opinion about his opinion? You can have expansive ideas about opinions being acceptable but you need to apply them consistently. If he can tell a bunch of people that they’re not worthy of their careers, surely I can tell him that this is an awful thing to say.

It’s not “touchy” to be offended when someone says that the thing you do for a living, the thing you’re best at in the whole world, the thing you spend more time doing than anything else except sleeping, is something you shouldn’t even be doing at all, that you’ve somehow fundamentally fucked up a major part of the last couple of decades of your life.

Your question about Stallman and Linus is bizarre. These are people who are famous for being rude, almost as much as they’re famous for their achievements. If either one of them told me that I shouldn’t be in this field because I don’t do much programming in my spare time, I’d tell them to fuck right off.

Which is a valid view too. Its true that for some people, if you only code at work you have to accept that you will have some disadvantages.

If you're not good enough to do your job competently (or not trying to actively get there) after experience doing this only at work, then I wouldn't hire you is how I look at it.

What if they good enough to do the job competently while doing it only at work and also code outside work that is unrelated with work?

Good for them. In many cases, getting good enough to do the job competently while doing it only at work is exactly how you get to the point of coding impressive stuff that is unrelated to work!

In fact, I've seen friends that decide to do something in a weekend side project that's super impressive, but it doesn't mean they're doing it every or most weekends. They're usually relaxing or living a balanced life, which in turn makes it possible for them to do their best work during the week.

Think about it this way. If a bodybuilder didn't take off enough days to rest in between really intense workouts and then prematurely plateaued at a certain point because they haven't respected the ideal rest/load balance, is that an obsession that enables or gets in the way of their fitness goals?

We shouldn't think that mental fitness is an exception.

Ok, so if one day you loose the desire to do code at home, by your own thinking, you should leave the field altogether?

Maybe people enjoy programming enough to make it their job, but to go home and relax afterwards? Who wants to do the same thing 24/7?

While I don't think the OP meant 24/7, I think the point remains that coding outside working hours is a choice borne purely out of personal interest. Having this interest is fine - maybe it makes you a better programmer or maybe it does not. Not having this interest is _also_ fine - and saying that people who don't have it are unfit to be in the field is just sitting on a high horse and looking down at others.

I just think if you enjoy programming in work, having it outside of work too risks ruining both your hobby and your job if you get burned out.

It's not even about wanting to do it. Doing anything on the metaphorical 24/7 will burn people out.

Yeah. I quite enjoy programming, and I'm quite good at it; as a result I quite enjoy my job and I get paid quite a lot. I'm very lucky!

And to help protect that, I carefully limit the amount of programming I do outside of work hours. The last thing I want is to burn out and stop enjoying my job! And also, there's an enormous number of enjoyable things in life (family, friends, crafts, etc.). Diversifying my hobbies is win/win.

I don't judge people who focus purely on programming, but I do suspect that they may find their views change over time.