I don't think he is denigrating it. He probably phrased it badly, but he meant you did side projects like a hobby just as well you might have done hiking in that time.

Except that some side projects have value. The fact that you do the show useful traits- not all that you should consider hiring and not sufficient but useful. Not agreeing they have more value than hiking is wrong. I know several side projects which did have value and shown at least that their holders were interesting to hear.

I read it the same way. Hiking is a stereotypical hobby along with playing an instrument.

It's not saying its exciting, its that its equally boring.

I don't think the parent poster is giving any judgement to how people spend their time, only qualifying how.

All hobbies are irrelevant.

I work at a company as a consultant. Devs here have been doing the same thing for 10 years. Webforms. Guess what? None of their hobbies include coding. Stuff like git is like fire to these cavemen.

My first question is what does migrating to a new system get you that the current system doesn’t? Is the new system even compatible with existing system? I ask, because you sound like you want to rewrite a stable system. Stop whining and make a business case.

The idea that you need hobbies that match your work is as dumb as expecting a funeral director to embalm cats on the weekend.