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?"

Comments

Mix menial with creative

[Wade Tregaskis]

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.

Re:Consider quitting....

[Anonymous Coward]

You might not have to swich careers in order to keep it a hobbie. If you code C all day and you come home and... code C all night, then yeah, it's going to get old. But some people (such as myself) are okay with coding C during the day, and doing crazy stuff in Ruby at home.

Either way, it's better to have non tech hobbies as well.

Tough it through for a while

[Solder Fumes]

My advice is to work your tail off right now, focus on your job and move up in the company until you achieve a management position. At that point, your job will mostly be personal interaction, aerial views of ongoing projects, and helping develop specifications. That won't burn you out on programming, so you'll be fresh enough to do personal projects. You'll also stay in the loop on current technologies, but not be forced to slog through code unless you want to.

Re:Tough it through for a while

[Anonymous Coward]

>I don't know one who is quietly desperate about the
>easier hours, the bigger house and bank account,
>and improved lifestyle for their family.

I think you have (at the same time, no less)
fully agreed with the grandparent and Thoreau, and
totally missed their point.

Bravo. You will do well in Management.

Go freelance

[hsoft]

Well, be prepared to live poor, but happy. I'm currently between 2 jobs, and I'm much more actively working on my own projects that trying to find a new job...

Well, unless I'm very lucky and my business get of and finally gets me money, I will soon have to start working for somebody else than myself, because I'm quite running out of money. However, my plan is to work, hum... 1 year, and pay myself a little 3 months of cool developing... again :)

As I said in another post a while ago, money not only buys cars and houses, it buys time. Try to save money for that, instead of wasting money on useless crap, getting into debt, and then being *forced* to work because of these debts.

Re:Go freelance

[simonfunk]

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.

Re:Go freelance

[simonfunk]

I was raised by a single mom (receiving no alimony or child care) who worked as a waitress while going to school part-time. She earned a lot less than I ever did, and we got by (we even backpacked around Europe a couple of times, when I was three and five). I learned a lot from that about what is necessary in life and what is optional. The margin between what people think they need to spend and what they actually need to spend is HUGE.

One thing that's important to understand is that all productivity is the leveraging of capital, where capital is essentially the sum of the value of your body, knowledge, and property. If you let yourself go into debt (car loans, etc.), you are falling behind the curve. The closer to a net-value of zero you get, the less you have to leverage and the longer it will take to dig yourself out. Conversely, the more you can get ahead of the curve, the more leverage you have, the easier it is to move forward. The lesson in this is: earn first, spend later, never the other way around. Tighten your belts until you get ahead of the curve, and then you can loosen them in measure.

I recommend the book The Millionaire Next Door; also The Richest Man in Babylon. Both of them basically tell the same story: whatever you're living on now, cut it by a mere 10% and save that. Most anybody can manage that, and the long-term results are spectacular. People (by and large) don't get rich by earning a lot, they get rich by spending less than they earn, over many years.

In the end, money is time...

(FWIW, I started consulting at 18, bought my first house at 21, and lived there with two empty bedrooms, and a [debt-free] car I rarely used, for many years. The extra cost of a family would have been incidental.)

It's easy

[Curtman]

So, how do my fellow programming geeks balance work related projects and personal projects?

I cancelled my cable TV subscription, and now I can never think of anything better to do.

Re:It's easy

[floydman]

Well what do you know, i did exactly the same. In fact i sold the TV set with it too. You wanna know what happened, i suddenyl had this tremedous amount of time to use in reading, going to a gym, learning new stuff.. its beautiful. All of my mates wonder how am i living without a TV set, i tell them its a pleasure you would never know. I second this solution, out of experience.

Way Diff

[sapen]

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*.

Easy

[gtrubetskoy]

So, how do my fellow programming geeks balance work related projects and personal projects?

They work on personal projects while at work.

Mushrooms

[jupiter909]

Try magic mushrooms, that will get you in a creative mood again. See the world from a differnt point of view but keeping focus. You'll find that the worlds best minds see things from a 'mushroom' type point of view.