Slashdot Mirror
Keeping Programming Fun?
nb caffeine asks: "Having recently graduated, and now working as a developer, I've discovered that after 9 hours of programming at work, I have little interest in coming home and working on my personal programming projects. I've become upset with this fact, because while I was in college, I spent quite a bit of time working on personal projects for my own use. I also noticed this trend during my summer internship, and I have a feeling that it isn't going to get any better. It's not to say that I don't get to work with cool technologies at my job, but they aren't anything that I would pick up in my spare time. So, how do my fellow programming geeks balance work related projects and personal projects? Or, if you've already discovered that after 9 hours of programming, the last thing you want to see is a computer, what hobbies does the Slashdot crowd enjoy after they've ruined their hobby by turning it into a job?"
I've had similar experiences and concerns. My conclusion is that you only get a few good hours of creative coding per day, if you're lucky. So if you spend that at work, you'll have none left for your own interests. While there's a few ways to solve this (not doing any real work at work is one ;) ), I find the best is to alternate each day between menial and creative tasks. So set aside some days at work to do documentation, specing, testing or whatever, which will leave you with the motivation to do some actually coding when you get home. And then the converse, where you can still do useful things (e.g. documentation) at home, after a good day of coding at work.
This is really weird to read all of these posts. I love programming. I read all of the books I can on every aspect of it I can. I don't mind working 10 to 15 hour days at the office (I have to and I do restrain myself due to a recent marriage, I love my wife to!) Most of the time my wife has to beg me to come home! When I'm at home I'm working on my own projects and doing side jobs. When I am driving I'm thinking of how to properly apply a design pattern to a certain test or application. When I'm not programming I think about programming. I love writing code in all the languages I can.
Programming has never not been fun. It has always been a challenge. Even the dull routine work, well if I ever get dull routine work I write a script to automate what I am doing, so it isn't dull routine work anywhere. If it gets dull in one language I'll pick up a different language and write the routine in that.
Perhaps there are people who got in the wrong job for the wrong reason. If you do what you love you'll never be at work in your life. I've recently told my boss that work is like an adult playground for me, because I enjoy it so much.
Maybe I'm a little to code crazy, but I could never imagine feeling another way. I've been at my current job about 3 years.
So my advice is to do something you enjoy, don't settle for mediocre enjoyment. That's when you have a *job*.
Agreed. This has worked quite well for me. Do consulting contracts that are challenging enough to be both interesting in themselves, and high paying. Work your butt off, and don't spend any money you don't have to (I drove one used $3000 Toyota truck for 10 years). Then when you have enough of a buffer saved up (shouldn't take long!), take a few months or years off to work on your own hobbies. Next thing you know, someone will be wanting to hire you to apply your "hobbies" to their problem, so during those few months a year you do have to work, it will be on something you really enjoy. I've spent the last year just working on my own (programming and more recently robotics) projects, while living in Sweden, Tahoe, and now New Zealand. And my point is not "oh look how studly I am" but quite the opposite -- look how easy it is. My annual budget is about US$15,000, including rent, travel, toys, and food. (It helps that I don't drink, and also that I don't have to drive to "work" every day.) How much consulting do you have to do a year to earn that? Don't forget that if that's *all* you earn, you pay very little taxes. Part of the trick here is to live and earn light, where it's tax-efficient, and then eventually to leap-frog the horrible middle-ground where all your time goes to taxes and living expenses. If you spent six to eight months a year working on your own hobbies, how many years before you had something you could turn into a business of your own? This cycle has worked for me for about 18 years now. It took me a couple years consulting full time to kick it off (get my skills and savings up to snuff), and it's been less and less work and more and more "play" ever since. And even those first two years were fun stuff, since it's easier to find a fun short contract than a fun full-time job. In short, my answer is: don't try to divide the hours of your day into work and play, because as you imply you just can't occupy your brain with all that stuff in one day. Instead, divide the years or months of your life into work and play. It's no harder--it just takes the discipline not to spend the money you're building up.