I think the key is, write different kinds of code for your job and for your hobby.

At my last job (which I burnt out on pretty badly), I was a platform-level programmer and DevOps person for a robotics startup.

When I went home, I wrote instruction set simulators for 8-bit architectures. Why? Because why the hell not?

I can wholeheartedly agree with this. I do Web Development for a living, so I write a lot off business application backend / frontend JS code. While it's certainly fun (especially when there's no pre-built solution for some problems and you have to wrap up your own code to fill the gap), most of my personal code revolves about making computer games.

These end up for the most part being some multiplayer HTML5 Tech Demos (where I can play with all the fancy new Web Tech I can't use at my day job) or really old-school stuff like doing Z80 Assembly for my very own old-school Nintendo GameBoy Jump & Run (along side with a custom assembler / compiler and toolchain) and digging in dissamblies of commercial games.

I can't imaging just doing "work" code, because that can be very exhausting at times. But I certainly have no problem staying up all night and getting that game up and running around 5AM in the morning just to scribble down some more ideas before I finally head off to bed.

I have tried starting a few side projects that are completely different from my day job, but the scattered hours that I get to work on them makes it twice as hard to get anywhere with them.

Now my side project is based on the database I have built at work (as an in house project). It makes it so much easier, as the hard non-coding problems are usually well understood, as I have thought about them before. I can pick it up and leave it without forgetting anywhere near as much. And it gets rid of the frustration I have at work, because the quality of the code is always ignored in favor of new feature that were needed yesterday. Same thing but with nicely written code.

> I think the key is, write different kinds of code for your job and for your hobby.

I would expand this to say (just on personal experience) also have varied hobbies. They then challenge you in completely different ways allowing the exercise of one activity to be downtime from the others.

I was wondering the other day: is it possible to enjoy coding, be good and employable, and still leave your work at work? I code at home too, but yeah, other passions take priority. You rarely hear about programmers who don't live and breathe code, but there must be a huge number of them.

Yes!

If you hang around HN or the trendy hipster blogosphere, then no. Seems those developers are the scum of the earth and shouldn't be allowed near a computer, but in the real world, those are the ones doing important development in medicine, banking, military, etc, while keeping normal work hours. Just because they don't create the 389th Javascript frontend MVC fully reactive template based framework and create 50 blog posts about it, doesn't mean they aren't good at their jobs.

80/20 principle probably applies.

I've known lots of programmers who turn up, do a good job then go home, they don't blog, follow frameworks or languages or any of the other stuff that isn't directly required for work.

Hi, deaconblues. I'm guy who write this article. I can't speak for anybody but myself, but developers who don't live and breathe code probably don't work in the major tech hubs or for startups.

I'm a contractor who does a hell of a lot of work for state governments. An NDA precludes my naming names, but I work in a Microsoft shop and I've spent the last year helping reverse-engineer a legacy system implemented in COBOL than ran on an IBM mainframe.

It isn't sexy work, but somebody has to do it. Why not mercenaries with bad attitudes like me? :)

Yes. Actually most programmers I work with seem to be 9-5ers without any passion. I am a 9-5er with some passion about the languages and tools I use.

I guess I'd just like the distinction that not living and breathing code doesn't equal a lack of passion. I'm passionate about programming. Can't say I ever was about washing dishes. They were both jobs, though, and when I get off work, there are other things I want to do.

There are other things outside of work that I am more passionate about. But programming can be interesting, and pays the bills.

Precisely. I see loads of people here working until late because "they have to hit the deadline". All it seems to produce is a bigger pile of bugs to fix in the next sprint.

> But I write code at home. Not work-related code, and not to the exclusion of other hobbies. But coding is something I enjoy, something I sometimes like to do for its own sake. I won't apologise for that.

So do I. I think the difference is whether you expect other people to do the same or not. I'm very careful in which way I mention this, especially when it comes to potential hires. This is not what makes a good programmer, it's just something I personally get a lot of value from.

Exactly. Being passionate about programming is not the same as being passionate about whatever an employer wants you to do.

What I tell people is, if you really don't feel like there's anything you'd rather spend your time doing besides coding, then go ahead and do it. But don't spend those hours at the office. Instead, go home after an 8 hour day, and code something else. Code something that will benefit YOU, not the company.

Why spend all that time working to make someone else rich?

my biggest f-up happened during a 4AM call - I deleted an entire filesystem... twice...

I agree, coding for enjoyment outside of the work you get paid for is very different.