Or full time for someone else - only a small number of the professional programmers I know do 'out of hours' coding for fun or profit. The ones that do tend to be restricted to a fairly narrow age range and are working on their own things or with a well-trusted friend.

Despite the fact that I am running my own business I frequently get asked to work on <an idea that is sometimes good but usually not interesting to me> by <a person I have met once with no idea of how hard their concept actually is to implement> who seem to be under the impression that because I can code I'd be happy with a 5% equity stake and will jump right on it.

I take it as a compliment that they think highly of my abilities and try to be helpful by trying to point them at people who are looking for work, suggesting some ways they can make their pitch more credible (for example, committing to the prospective programmer how many hours they will put into PR and sales work), and resetting their expectations up to about 50% of equity.

Right now the tables are turned on me as I would love a good PR and sales person to work with (not business admin - I'm good at that). But I need someone who can fund themselves for 12 months and so that puts me firmly on the wrong end of the supply/demand equation for once. The experience has given me a lot more empathy with the B school grads out there looking for coders.

developers looking for non-technical partners - now that area would be in demand. The power shifts to the developer, but that would be a good thing for the project. A site for this would be great - developers would never have to take a project again that they don't like again (well that's a goal). One of the logistics involved is geographical dispersion of founders: is that acceptable, and how can it be overcome?

When do we get to work?

when people pay you, and go into partnership with you. You are being paid for your ideas and your skills. Is that what you mean?

Its like how everyone has an idea for an AWESOME computer game, if only they could find (coder|artist|...)

That is actually a special case: There aren't a lot of people who are both artists and coders, so there would nearly always be someone who would be looking for the other part.

And no, I don't have an idea for an awesome game. But that is because I am working on one, so I will properly be inspired by next summer. Oh well.