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Ted Dziuba Says, "I Don't Code In My Free Time"
theodp writes "When he gets some free time away from his gigs at startup Milo and The Register, you won't catch Ted Dziuba doing any recreational programming. And he wouldn't want to work for a company that doesn't hire those who don't code in their spare time. 'You know what's more awesome than spending my Saturday afternoon learning Haskell by hacking away at a few Project Euler problems?' asks Dziuba. 'F***, ANYTHING.'"
Also:
Who cares?
Yeah and the whole world should be just like him!
... in computers. Isn't that worth something when weighing up job candidates? Sorry , but if this guy doesn't realise that someone who is interested in what they do as a day job will probably put in more effort that someone who's just a clock watching for-the-money type then frankly he's an idiot. This rule applies to ANY profession, not just programming.
Greetings! Problem 260 will be accessible on Sat 17 Oct 2009 at 1.00 am [GMT]. With regards, Project Euler Team
If he doesn't code in his spare time, obviously he won't find himself working anywhere that only hires people that do.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
When I worked as a spaghetti cook and eating spaghetti every night for three years, I didn't eat spaghetti for the next seven years.
When I worked as video game tester for six years, I very rarely played video games at home. After 40 to 80 hours a week testing games, I wanted to do something different with my time.
I been resisting offers to do technical writing since I write fiction in my off times. An ideal job is one that you can separate from your personal life.
I mean, you wouldn't hire a gardener who had a garden of his own - would you?
Schmuck.
OMG!!! Ponies!!!
I don't read Ted Dziuba's articles in my free time...or when I am working, actually.
AT&ROFLMAO
but for some working is all the formalism that is involved, or the particular thing that must be used or worked on. But coding could be fun, even more fun than some games. Of course, that is purely subjective. If he dont think that coding could be fun, and work in coding, maybe is doing the wrong work.
So he would want to work for those who do hire people who don't code in their spare time? Or would want to work for those who don't hire people who do code in their spare time? Or what?
And Who's on first, right?
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Article summary: Smug douchebag knows it all, or gets to learn it all on the job.
Good for him. But for normal people who are, say, coding ASP or Visual Basic 6 at work-- if they would like to have some professional development, I hope they're doing some coding on the side to reinvent themselves. People that don't generally end up doing something like working on COBOL systems principally written in the 60's and 70's. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm just saying: most people need to do some personal development off the the side of their job, or else they're stagnating. Plenty of people will disagree with me on this point, and have in the past on Slashdot. But generally speaking, those people have quit growing, and will of course deny it.
Personally I try to avoid companies that care that much about what I do in MY time in general. If I'm not on the clock, its none of your fucking business. If I decide to learn a new language on my own, it is irrelevant until I start using it at work, in which case I expect my going above and beyond to be noticed. If it is required that I learn something new for work, I sure as hell had better be paid by the company for it one way or another (even if it just means doing the learning during company time).
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
I agree with Ted - you can code in your dungeon, or you could go out, make friends, play with your kids, work on your hobbies, volunteer at a charity, learn how to cook, make a well rounded life for yourself.
Code probably fulfills a need to do puzzles and keep the brain entertained, but the world is so much bigger, and computers aren't going to keep you happy in your old age.
Yeah the article is a bit of a troll, particularly around here.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
So he's saying he doesn't like programmers who enjoy what they do? Interesting.
I've never known a *good* programmer who doesn't write code as a hobby.
Today's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why. -- Hunter S. Thompson
I used to love to fish, I loved it so much that I opened a bait shop. But as the Bait shop became successful it took up more and more of my time. Until i was left with no time to go fishing.
from his POV.
If you're a senior dev with years of experience under your belt, perhaps yous hould do something else with your time off. If you're a green horn who should be getting a little jump start and some experience, that's a different story.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Work is the boring stuff. You're fixing tedious bugs in tedious applications dealing with tedious real world problems like the cover page of the new TPS report. It's like a ski instructor that have to deal with all the horribly inexperienced people doing things all wrong or at least it's nothing like cruising along freely yourself. Obviously after a long day on the job I understand that this person would just want to go home, eat a pizza and do something completely different. But I'd be concerned about the coder that didn't have any pet projects, any interest in coding outside work like a ski instructor that never just goes skiing. No deadlines, no pressure, no dealing with poor specs, annoying customers or superiors. If you don't ever tinker with anything under those conditions I really don't see you giving it your best during work hours either. I don't mean that you need to have a long list of "public" off-hours coding experience that can be validated and put on your CV, just as a personality treat.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I hope they go public so I can short their stock. It's not very often that you get such a clear sell signal.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You want to know how I learned Haskell? By doing project euler problems... DRUNK. See, this guy is all hoity-toity about going to the bar on weekends.... I bring the bar to ME, then I go out into the trenches, a little bit of beer, and solve those project euler problems after 5 beers minimum.
Nothing like a 12 pack and a functional, correctly solved project euler problem to separate the men from the boys.
Most people don't. So what?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
When you're looking to hire a gardener, do you examine his previous work, or do you make sure he spends at least x hours a day tending his own garden?
If you do the latter, you're the bigger schmuck.
I'd also like to point out, that this Ted fellow did not say "I'd never work someplace where any of the other employees code at home". He says "I don't want to work someplace where coding at home is _a requirement_". There's a big difference.
He probably spends most of his spare time writing to the makers of Scrabble trying to persuade them that surnames should be allowed as legitimate words.
AT&ROFLMAO
While your hobbies and your job might be similar, still doesn't mean you want them to be the same. For example I'm a classic computer geek in many ways in that computers are my business and my hobby. I work doing systems and network support, and I like to spend my free time playing video games, messing with digital audio production, and so on. Most of my time is spent on a computer.
However, I discovered that doing computer support professionally has now given me little patience for doing it after hours. I no longer wish to spend time messing with my computer at home. I want it to just work, and get rather annoyed when it doesn't. I'm not interested in any hardware or software support. I want it to work, so I can use it to do other things.
Because of that I don't do many of the hardware geek things like overclock my system or the like. Not interested. I'll pay more to get a faster CPU if I need it, the stability is worth me not having to fuck with it. To some people, it is the opposite: Messing with the hardware is more than half the fun. Not me, I do that at work, at home I want it stable all the time.
So I can for sure see a programmer being the same way with regards to programming. Maybe they totally eschew computers on their off time, maybe they use them heavily but don't code. Either way I can see how coding could become a "work only" sort of thing.
That is, in fact, one of the reasons why I don't look for a job in the video game field. I've thought about it since at first it would seem to be a good idea. I like computers, I like games, I enjoy tech jobs so maybe I'd enjoy it more than my current job. However, I think it would likely ruin, or at very least dampen, my enjoyment of games in my off time. As such it is something I'm staying away from.
Well, he is right: to succeed in business, you generally don't need to be particularly innovative or high-tech. Hiring average programmers that are easy to work with is probably a better business decision than hiring difficult top-notch nerds. But why go into high tech at all then? If you aren't fascinated by technology and just view the whole thing as a business, you might as well make your money with toilet paper or hamburgers.
Man, I dug up my Slashdot account just so I could one-up the "coolstorybro" tag.
What this guy probably doesn't know, is that just about all coders that actually are any good at their job, love the endless unlimited possibilities their knowledge provides so much that they simply don't give a fuck about whether somebody is paying them to do it or not. They _HAVE_TO_CREATE_. They _HAVE_TO_SOLVE_PROBLEMS_. They simply cannot be stopped.
While there may be many not-so-good programmers that love to code in their spare time, I have actually _NEVER_ met any good programmer/engineer/developer/whatever that DOESN'T WANT to code in their spare time. I don't think they exist. However, I do think many exist that THINK they're a good programmer. Probably this Ted Dziuba guy is one of them. I'd never hire him.
0x or or snor perron?!
The funny thing is that solving Project Euler problems using Haskell on Saturdays, is one of my favorite free time activities. No kidding, I really love coding in Haskell, and Project Euler got some really interesting problems.
The players name is "Hu", which you're mistaking for a question.
Unlike you, an AC which we've all heard of and unfortunately we'll be hearing from forever.
I am exactly the same. Being a web application engineer, i do not want to work on hobby projects at sparetime. Coding has always, and will always be a tool in my disposal, just a tool.
I do occasionally on my spare time read about some cool stuff related to coding, but not much. It reminds me of work. Instead on my spare time, i work on things which has the very least amount to do with computers as possible. Namely, i work on oldschool drifting car, or other car projects most likely. Maybe it sounds an very odd combination, but hey, i get exercise working on cars aswell. Lifting the motor, or banging on some suspension parts to get them loose or to fit, or get the current project done so i can finally get home, does take amazingly much stamina and strength, and when things go shit you are basicly running around or get back to home sooner and faster. Working on a car till 6-7AM ain't no light task.
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
The point is that you can be pretty darn sure that the person is NOT more skilled or knowledgeable.
Though imperfect, desire to hack on personal projects is a damn good lameness filter.
They _HAVE_TO_CREATE_. They _HAVE_TO_SOLVE_PROBLEMS_.
And one more, they _HAVE_TO_UNDERSTAND_. Understand what you say? Simply put, everything.
Speaking for myself, it was the need to understand the magic of electricity/electronics that drove me into that field. It was just so magical - you can't see an electron... That introduced me to programming and embedded systems. How does an OS work? Once again, it was all so magical and it led me to a CS degree. (That and I could see a future where embedded systems were not all programmed in assembly - higher level languages and techniques would be required for the future.)
The need to understand still drives me and will likely never go away. I hope it never goes away....
He talks in one post about how his best articles are trolls. The gentleman is proud of the fact. He also seems to have a long history with startups (= long work weeks and usually good opportunities to learn tech to begin with). He might as well have flagged the post as a sensationalist attempt to get blog traffic.
twoDigitIq says: "I don't have any free time. I'm always coding. I haven't had a day off in a fucking month." And again, nobody gives a shit when he says that.
> but considering I've never heard of you,
that's called an ad homimem attack.
just because you've never hear of him doesn't mean anything.
> If you aren't willing to go the extra mile,
> especially in this job market, there is a line
> of 10 guys behind you who are
and that's called "the race to the bottom":
workers competing with each other to see who can be exploited the most. oh, he'll work weekends? I'll top that, I'll never turn my phone off, I'll sleep on the premises. f**k me harder.
you're welcome to be a sucker.
our parents and grandparents fought for the right to leisure and decent working conditions and dorks like you will give up the whole lot in 5 minutes to out-macho some poster on slashdot.
it's simple: employers have a tendency to exploit. given free reign, they'll do so to quite disturbing extremes.
workers should resist exploitation but some workers (like yourself) are either too dumb, too blind or too pathetically eager to impress to look after their own interests.
employers must be laughing their asses off when people like you bat for their team - even if you are just swinging your dick, trying to look like the big man.
talk about turkeys voting for christmas...
> please drop this pretense that you are
> entitled to be
yeah, that's right.
he's not entitled to anything.
f**k him, he's expendable.
if it kills him, there's plenty more where he came from.
f**k human decency,
f**k leisure,
f**k family,
f**k culture,
f**k self-improvement,
f**k civilisation.
from the article:
"Saying that you wouldn't hire somebody for a programming job because they don't program in their spare time is blissfully naive."
you qualify.
http://teddziuba.com/2009/08/a-happy-life-without-the-whini.html/
There's an old example / argument about this issue and it goes like this: "Would you hire (or go to) a neurosurgeon who practices in his spare time?".
It's a little extreme but I feel it gets the point through - creative yet sensitive work makes people burn up faster.
-- Sig down
Gah, didn't you even read the summary? he's a guy with gigs at startup Milo and The Register, who you won't catch doing any recreational programming.
He has no idea what "those parts" feel like from the perspective of the owner. The pain caused by needlessly cutting and stitching them (an episiotomy for example) isn't something that he will ever fully understand.
"Get a Life" by William Shatner.
Ted Dziuba is trying to tell people who code in their own time to get a life and do other things like start up relationships, live life, get married, save up for a house or car, etc.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
If you don't program in your spare time, you either:
- Don't touch computers in your spare time, meaning I will sometimes need to explain to you how to open the Internet. I don't want you to work in the same department as me.
- or - Don't use programming to solve problems on your computer at home. Why should I expect you to see programming as a solution to problems you spot at work? Sounds like someone who would either say "that's not part of my job description!" or who (more importantly) wouldn't think to mention it, since they'd never even think of applying their supposed skills to a problem.
- or - at the very least, have no experience programming outside of whatever niche you've been stuck in for the past five, ten, fifteen, etc, years. The job was for "C Programmer" not "The macros and function library of a specific twenty-year-old example of bit-rot Programmer"
It's also worth noting that everyone who says they don't program at home does horribly on the rest of the interview, without fail, while most people who say they do program at home wind up doing quite well.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
168 comments in, probably no one is going to read this. Still, I'll say it anyway.
I wouldn't hire someone who had no interest what-so-ever programming in their spare time. That said, I also wouldn't hire someone that does nothing else but program in their spare time. I'm not looking for someone that can solve a general problem (what do I do when I'm not working?) in a specific way. I want a hint that the person I'm talking with during an interview has other interests. I don't want to know what they are. That leads to information I'm not supposed to know during an interview. I just want them to give me an assurance that they are a well-rounded person with other pursuits.
Myself? Of course I program in my spare time. I also collect books, smoke and collect tobacco pipes, play RPGs (the pen and paper kind) with my friends, play computer games, cook... the list of things I do in my spare time is endless. That's what I'm looking for, because someone who doesn't lack for things to do in their spare time most liely comes with several approaches to solving new problems and that's the type of person I'm looking to hire.
calling someone who uses the word fuck a "fucking retard" is somewhat fucking retarded.
He sounds like a textbook MCSE/MSCD and is probably about as skilled as such. The only thing he seems to be good at is marketing seeing as that we're talking about him here in spite of never having heard of him until now.
Congrats on getting your name out there!
This guy sounds like he hates programming. I would not be surprised if he changed jobs soon.
to programming. I started and learned it on my own, in my spare time, while working retail, manual labor, or whatever other crap job was available. Now I have a family, a house, a full time job coding, a part time business coding, and I *still* love coding in my spare time, what little there is.
I don't see how hiring someone who loves what they do is a bad thing, even if they love it enough to do it in their spare time.
good you don't want that free time to be free work and your boss can say you like to code in your free time / how about doing some work at home?
...oh, and he evidently has time to write long blog entries. I love the irony of trying to sound smug and superior "I spend time with my family and my kids' development", whilst tapping away into a computer, posting it on the Internet and then posting it to Slashdot...
Regardless of what The Most Insightful 25 Year Old Programmer in the World thinks, it's still the employer's prerogative. And I'm willing to bet that if he finds himself in an interview for a job he desperately wants, he'll be willing to let this stance of his fall by the wayside and lie a bit... at which time he'll regret the Slashdot article titled "Ted Dziuba Says, "Fuck you, prospective employer!" that turns up on the first page of the Google search that the interviewer is sure to do on his name.
I can't trust that I'll interpret the original writer's intentions correctly here....
Hello, new way to spend my weekends! See, this is why I read /.
Those of you who don't have kids, won't get it.
I know, because it's not like we don't have any siblings with kids or friends with kids or were kids ourselves. We know nothing about kids, or parenting, or... what is it you call it? Family?
Please never, ever, ever say this. It is so unbelievably insulting. I actually can think of a couple childless people I know who seemed to be clueless about the lifestyle of coworkers with kids, but I can count them on one hand.
No, I don't know personally what it's like to be responsible for someone's physical and emotional well-being, but I've seen it done, and it looks pretty hard. I don't whine about coworkers with kids until it seems like they use it as a blanket excuse for why they can't do anything even when every other parent is fine with it. You know exactly what I'm talking about (unless you're the one who is always dropping the ball "because of the kids"). It's a mean trick to play on someone, to make them feel like they are directly harming the development of a little child by asking that someone pull their weight.
Then there's the other side. My wife and I can't have kids. That's okay with us; we've gotten over being depressed about it, and have just decided to be active with our families in other ways in the hopes that maybe a niece or nephew might visit us in the nursing home, or at least pick up our ashes. But try selling that to a boss if you don't have kids. People without kids still have families and still want to be connected to them, but unless those family members fell out of your own crotch, they don't really count. It's not like I'm saying "I can't make it to that meeting; my dad has the sniffles." But "Any way I can get out of that unscheduled meeting you threw right in the middle of my family reunion weekend?"
Ugh, why am I even bothering?
Those of you who have kids won't get it. ;-)
Didn't your mother ever tell you not to use triple negatives? Hope this Bozo doesn't code like he speaks.
Free Time? I'm sorry but that is not a term I am familiar with. What is it and what do you do with it?
Are there good artists who don't make art in their free time, or good musicians who don't make music in their free time?
The managers you work for, to keep their jobs and get raises, are literally vultures these days. If you come up with something really neat, and the bosses think it might somehow fit into what the company might want, to keep YOUR job, you turn it over to them. Unpaid hours of development = the company making profit just so you can keep your job?
The main reason back in the old days that the unions didn't get so much as a foothold into the tech culture is because tech companies were smart enough to treat their talent really, really well. (If you weren't, well, sorry about your misfortune, but you were in the minority.) You got paid solid pay much higher than the area average, you got full benefits, you had a degree of job security, and you could goof off from time to time and no one held it against you. Over the last 5 years, I've noticed the total number of months I've actually worked for pay drop to literally 6 months a year. I've had "jobs" where I discovered I was competing against an offshore team for consulting teams (and obviously losing because I was unwilling to work for 10 bucks an hour). Benefits? Haven't had even remotely decent coverage for many years. And the last few jobs I've worked, I was (along with my team) highly pressured to "innovate" on my own time in order to keep my job. In order to keep my contract position with no benefits, I was expected to "take ownership" of things on my own time.
An auto shop is not going to threaten to fire their contract employees if they don't work overtime for free. You won't see that in most industries. But because a lot of developers are basically pussies and won't stand up, get together, and fight back, companies are going to do this more and more because they can get away with stealing the fruits of labor YOU create on YOUR OWN time. No, developers are more willing to lay down, call themselves libertarians, rag on the unions, bitch and moan about having no free hours in their days, cry when they get laid off, and stay in that cycle until they drop dead.
I'm just surprised that this kid is burned out already. Usually takes several more years of being used like a whore by managers who contribute nothing more than their ability to lie and cover their own asses. He must be REALLY smart.
And doing it professionally since I was 29. I'm 50 something now.
When I work I code between 6 to 12 - maybe more - hours a day.
On my own time I like to read, go skiing, fly airplanes, hang out with friends, go dancing, take a trip somewhere.
It's called Life.
I am not my job.
----- In Your Cubicle No One Can Hear You Scream...
Hi Linus,
I'm having problems with sound on my laptop in Ubuntu. Is this something you can fix in the kernel or is it a problem with the distro? Please help.
Best Regards, AC
It's ok. He wouldn't even be able to work at such a company because they would not hire him because he doesn't code in his spare time. Looks like that "issue" solved itself.
sent from my slashdot browser.
If i were you, i would work for FREE on your sparetime, what is what you are essentially doing
I do plenty of coding in my spare time that's NOT work. Like processing of my digital photos and videos for instance. Or a script to let me know when an item's price drops at Newegg. You seem to view ALL coding as work. I'm nearly 32 and I truly enjoy writing programs. I need to rest my eyes, hands, get exercise, etc. I enjoy time with my family and I enjoy playing sports, but I do not shun programming while not at "work".
There are facets of work life that are stressful and require "RELAXATION" time, but for me, coding is not one of them. I receive the same enjoyment and satisfaction from coding, whether it be at home or work. I have believed for some time and I maintain from my experience that the best craftsmen are those that truly enjoy the craft.
Always with the "my time is my time" self-absorbed types making it seem like the rest of us don't have lives. Well, I have a life. I am not a mutant !!
Not quite as annoying as the ones who seem to think that they are going to be paid for every waking hour. Newsflash. Free time has no monetary value. Hence the "free" part.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
"If You're Good At Something, Never Do It For Free"
It's not a grammatically incorrect sentence. It's just a bit confusing, albeit technically precise. Better would probably have been something like "and he wouldn't want to work for a company that only hires those who like to code in their spare time."
Ted writes (wrote) a semi-recurring column in the The Register that uses the word "fuck" a lot, has awkward metaphors that work hard to offend the easily-offended, and that's seems to be set up to troll-bait and build out the numbers on the comment forums. Nothing new since August, so apparently he is spending more time with his family.
WHO THE FUCK IS TED DZIUBA?
So what if he doesn't code in his free time? I don't watch sports in my free time. Who gives a damn about what I do in my spare time? Who gives a damn about what Ted does in his free time?
Next up "Angus McFinnigan doesn't play golf in his free time."
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
The only thing i get from this is "My life sucks, I hate my job so much ill publicly state i don't code when i don't have to. Oh and here... a pelican eating a rabbit."
That grey monster devouring a sweet little bunny wabbit is a grey herron!
This despicable monster is a plague worse than the biblical locusts. Swarms of these screeching monsters peck at pets and small children, make an awful mess pulling anything edible out of the garbage containers, and cover the city with their immense splashes of their foul, abrasive excrement. You think pigeon poop is a problem? A herron poops puddles the size of a pigeon! Oh and the screeching! Have you ever heard one of these monsters sing? Inflate a balloon, then stretch the nozzle while you slowly deflate it. Imagine that sound getting married and having a child with the screeching of a dinosaur from a 1950's movie, that's what it sounds like.
The worst part is, you can't do a damn thing about them. You can't shoot them because burocrats in Brussels think these freaky miscreants are 'rare' and 'protected'. You know what, these feathered meat golems only seem rare, because they all seem to have flocked to these parts.
Oh wait! I've spent over 7 years doing just that, IN MY SPARE TIME: http://www.tuxpaint.org/
Now, if someone would hire me to do it full-time, so I can keep putting food on my family [sic], I _might_ stop working on it in my spare time. (No guarantee, though.) I guess even more important is: who is this Ted person, and why do I give a crap? I've got literally millions of children to worry about. :^P
I'm having difficulty understanding your dialect. Could you write a perl script to translate that to English, please?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I take his position. I don't code in my free time either. Actually, I fucking hate programming. I happen to be pretty good at it, and that allows me to get paid a pretty good salary for it. But I don't like it. It's boring and monotonous, and if I could get paid the same amount for doing something that's easier for me to do, I'd do that. What I've found in my years as a Software Engineer (and this is true in many fields), that people tend to define themselves as their career. When asked "who are you?", many answer "Im X, and I'm a Software Engineer". I think it's short sighted. I am not what I do for a living. For me, it's just a job. I work so I can be who I am when I'm done working.
Yeah that line of reasoning is also somewhat faulty when people argue about whether to buy something to save time. "Well I make $50/hour so if I take a helicopter instead of driving I pay $200 but save 5 hours so it's cheaper to fly" Sure it's perhaps more cost-efficient, but in the end you're still out more money.
When the time they're arguing about is not work time, the whole thing becomes even more dubious. "It's cheaper to go out for food every day, because if you factor in the time it takes to cook your own meal then cooking is more expensive". Then they spend their saved time doing nothing productive and wonder why they don't have any money.
I too refuse to work for any company that wouldn't hire me.
This guy sounds similar to myself. If the job is a 9-5 coding, I don't want to spend my free time coding. If my 9-5 is working on cars, I don't want to spend my free time working on cars. If my 9-5 is being a doctor, I don't want to spend my free time working in the clinic.
On the one hand, I totally get that. In fact, in college I seriously considered not becoming a programmer for a living, specifically because I didn't want to ruin my enjoyment of it...
On the other hand - I think there are certain advantages to making your work something that you naturally enjoy. It's like Scotty on the old Star Trek. There was that one episode where he got a day off and all he wanted to do was read technical journals related to his job... I can relate to that, too. I didn't start learning about computers so I could get a job as a programmer, I became a programmer because I enjoy computers and I enjoy solving problems. I became a programmer because I wanted to be a programmer - and found it convenient that I could make money with that skill.
Now as for whether you hire someone based on whether they program in their free time - I'd agree that seems a bit silly. I expect it could be helpful to see what sorts of things they've done (like the programmers' equivalent of a portfolio) but in the end, when it comes to a job, what counts is whether they can and will do the work. Damned if I know how you judge that, though. I'm just a programmer. :)
Bow-ties are cool.
Actually it does work like that but you have to calculate your continuous, rather than peak, earnings per hour. If you get paid $50/hr and you work 8 hours a day, you're only actually earning $16.70/hour. For it to be a genuine saving to take the helicopter, you'd have to save more than 12 extra hours in the 'copter on that $200 trip. There's a reason we fly rather than drive when we're travelling long distance.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Clean the wax out of your ears, you stinking hippy!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Amazing number of attacks on who or what the author might be as opposed to what he has to say. Why do people feel a need to complain he's just a blogger or whatever? Do you have to be famous to have an opinion? Very strange.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Actually it does work like that but you have to calculate your continuous, rather than peak, earnings per hour. If you get paid $50/hr and you work 8 hours a day, you're only actually earning $16.70/hour. For it to be a genuine saving to take the helicopter, you'd have to save more than 12 extra hours in the 'copter on that $200 trip. There's a reason we fly rather than drive when we're travelling long distance.
So if you take a day off work that is not a sick or holiday day, you still earn the same amount that week?
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
Erm, don't you? Every place I've worked (as a permanent employee, rather than a contractor), unscheduled days off come out of your accrued leave and your pay for the week is unaltered. If you run out of accrued leave and you're still taking random days off, then you're more likely to be fired for chronic absenteeism rather than just losing some pay.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
The whole sentence is an oxymoron.
I sparingly code in my spare time, but if someone requires me to do that kind of misses the whole point.
I'd recently given up on an otherwise very interesting job, just because they required me to complete an assignment - about two full days of coding, testing, etc (at the very least) on top of a 5 hours interview, even thought they were aware I'm already in a full-time job and that I might have some better things to do in the little bits of spare time that I have...
Some people become developers because they naturally gravitate towards the profession, they find coding fun and interesting - i.e. "I would dabble in this even if I wasn't being paid". One of the best things you can do with your life is do something you enjoy, and that's the whole point of asking a programmer in an interview if they have their own side projects - is this person one of those individuals who loves what they do? People who love what they do are *necessarily* the best in their fields, period. The author only fights against the truth of this because he does not enjoy what he does. He chafes at being compared to others, knows only disadvantage and loss because he should be doing something else.
In my experience (blah blah blah), those who don't do stuff outside of 9 to 5 aren't necessarily bad at what they do - but people who are bad at what they do don't stuff outside 9 to 5.
It shouldn't be expected, because that's stupid, but it should be a note in the margin.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
It all goes down to what pleases you (it's *free* time, after all). I, for example, enjoy off-work programming a little bit, but I am very happy to *have programmed* off-work, that is, I love the results, the fact that I have lots of cool babies of my own (or in which I had a role), and I'm willing to spend the extra mile for that. Sue me, your mileage may vary anyway.
How does that relate to who I should hire, or who would hire me? Well, I guess the thing sorts itself out: each team will end up being built around the same types of programmers (off-time coders x non off-time coders, for example). In the medium term, the team "personality" is born, and hiring goes from that point, in my humble experience.
But I can't help noticing the author of the article is quite opinionated, and a few of his opinions cross the boundary between "funny" and "gross". "This Is America, Take Your Unicode Somewhere Else" is a title that shows how well he plays along with anyone that thinks or looks different, so take that in account when reading his blog.
putting down your betters
My what?
It sounds like you're steeped in archaic notions of social class. Are you british?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
it also seems to be that verbose replies elude you.
No, I just pick and choose who's worth responding to in depth. Better luck next time.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Quick tip: Run-on sentences are bad, m'kay?
you think you have the right to state that mess
Heh. I DO have the right to say whatever I care to. Your approval is not required: Doesn't that just make you want to scream, or cut yourself? Go cry, emo kid.
using alternate logons to mod yourself up as jcr here from one of your other sockpuppet accounts of yourself
Interesting scenario you've concocted there. I find it a bit hard to imagine caring enough about how my posts are moderated to go to that much trouble. My /. karma has been "excellent" for something over a decade now.
you should have at least some proof that you yourself have done as well or even better results on your part than those you criticize.
That's a rather ridiculous premise. Criticism is reserved to those who qualify according to your criteria? Ok, if we go on that basis, then as an AC, you're completely unqualified to criticize me, aren't you?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I used to like to code at home. Unfortunately I haven't coded a line of C++ in years - I used to dabble at home and at work was a release engineer maintaining builds, fixing bugs, writing installers, and so forth. I'm self-employed now. My partners and contractors do most of the coding, and I do mostly sysadmin work, network buildouts, and video surveillance and when I do work in software it's just maintaining subversion and writing functional specs. Being self-employed, I work long hours. It's system administration anywhere from 8 to 20 hours a day. All too often I'm logged in at 2:00am working on systems, or am at a client sit until then doing after-hour buildouts or upgrades.
Because of that when I am home I just want to chill - but friends, roommates, and congregation members hit me up for help with their computers, so I help them out. In my free time, I just want to relax and hang out with friends. I'm so overworked and tired I can't even be bothered to touch my synthesizers, let alone work on my blog or dabble on iPhone apps I have been writing specs for.
I want to get back into OOP but there is such a thing as burnout - and I've hit it. I'd LOVE to go back to working 9-5, earning a lot more money to do what I do best (release engineering, keeping QA and development communication and progress in sync, automating the build process, mentoring QA engineers, and avoiding getting asked to fill in director-level positions). If I were to go back to that I'd get a lot of immediate gratification and would be able to go back to coding in my spare time, and maybe start some F/OSS projects I've had in mind for a while. However my partners and I are vested in building something and making it this far through this economy is a tremendous accomplishment and I want to see it through to the end and hopefully reach the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Is my life well-rounded right now? Aside from working long hours, I try to make it so.
Computer problems used to keep me up through the night: If I installed a bleeding-edge build of X or KDE and it broke, I used to stay up in front of the computer until I got it working. I used to work with MythTV until it worked (Myth is such an ugly app to set up by the way - it's a piece of crap, but wonderful once it is working). Now, I just want it to work. If it breaks, I'll work with it for a short while, then put it aside and log in from another computer at home, leaving it for the weekend. I'm too tired and too sick of dealing with sysadmin and customer support crap all day and night to care about my own computer having the latest and greatest on it, and am too tired and worn out to learn great projects like fog, amanda, and so on. I'd love to start programming some kde utilities but haven't the ambition, the time, or energy to do so. I long for the days when I can just leave work at work.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
When will /. support this important feature?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
From the article it seems the Slashdot contributor has done a fantastic job sensationalizing the article It looks like Ted Dziuba is actually saying he has an active family life and is angry that this brands him as a non-performer at work. This is a common problem with programmers today: workaholism worship. It's perpetuated by the fact that the majority of the "best" programmers are the ones who find other avenues to express themselves out side of work. This is not a failing of the programmers ... it's a failing of the programmer's work-places and the worship of the workaholic ethos just perpetuates this terrible short-coming in many work places as if it were normal and to be expected.
The problem stems from the fact that as a programmer you are unlikely to get professional training on the job and your bosses are unlikely to know talent when it bites them on the neck. So you simply *must* do something like article writing (just as Ted Dziuba does) or open source contributions in order to keep fresh. The most insightful companies offer "10% time" or other open source incentives so you can show your work to the rest of the industry.
Imagine if an author could only sell his novel to a single reader. That's what a programmer has to deal with. How else should a programmer show what they can do? They must find another avenue through articles, journals, books, speaking, open source projects, ... whatever to show their career development. If you don't do that then the only path for you is the one your employer decides to give you. If you aren't lucky enough to get hired by an insightful employer then you've got either a dead end job or a path to middle management. It's not like Schmo IT department is going to need you to become a kernel hacker.
Ted Dziuba is just as bad as the "free time" coders he derides... Ted writes articles in his "free time" stealing just as much time from his family as I do writing articles and contributing code. So to that I say Ted is a bit of a hypocrite. But sadly, I fully agree with his sentiment. Tech work places need to change. They need to give talented programmers ways to express their talent and be recognized for it the way star sports players are recognized. It would revolutionize the industry and make better companies and better employees.
[signature]
Some companies think they can put huge demands on interview candidates because the job market is bad. And believe they can use this to filter out the inferior people and get the best people. But really, all the good people have jobs, and they don't want to put up with those little interview games.
A lot of places are passing over good people just because their interview process has gone haywire from their assumptions. At my work we have a tremendously difficult time hiring the good people we interview. It's to the point that I don't even go to the interviews anymore, and tell people to just do whatever they feel like. The process right now just wastes my time and wastes candidate's time. It's a phone screen + two 5 hour interviews, and they were going to add some sort of take home coding test on top of all that. Quite a few super developers have turned us down, and we even turned a few amazing people down because we can't figure out a process that tells us what we want to know. Nor can we agree on what we want to know when it comes to making a hiring decision.
My belief is you have a quick phone screen, and a well designed interview based on the candidates resume to vet them, maybe 4-5 hours if you need to talk to 5 or 6 people. And that's it. You hire them, and then if they can't do the job, let them go in a few months. Of course my company is also not able to fire people either.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Almost every business executive who works all week long at 45+ hours a week doesn't want to keep working on the weekend when they get home. They've learned the value of personal time in which you can do whatever you want that doesn't have to do with what you do for the majority of your life's time. I'm totally in agreement with this guy. Who in the hell would want to spend that many hours a week working their ass off coding just to finally get a few days to relax and do something else, ANYTHING else, only to end up doing the same thing. Spending 80 hours a week coding, in any capacity, is a road to all kinds of mental health problems. When the weekend comes (whatever the weekend may be for you), get the hell away from what you do all week and do something else. It will be good for you!
You know, there are treatments available today for obsessive/compulsive disorder. Consult a physician, you don't have to be this way.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
you can stop modding yourself up via your "alternate logon sock puppets" too
I have exactly one /. account. I have no need for any others.
BTW, how long have you been a paranoid? Got any insights about the kennedy assassination to share with us?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
At the cost of sounding trite, it is. It's human nature to not want to do the same thing all the time, and once you've spent 40+ hours per week programming (well, minus all the office politics and other crap that gets mixed into the job), you may want to invest time in other hobbies too. I like to invest my time in other intellectual ventures and more physically active recreation. Also, I spend a good amount of time attacking the paradox of the social geek (the one who chats with the women he fancies). Does this mean I've never looked at a line of code or touched a compiler outside work? No, but it means I have other commitments, and I'd rather not degrade my life into a boring monomania.
On vit, on code et puis on meurt.
Im bias because im one of those that does code in my free time(my blog w/ code) but generally, in my opinion, programmers that code in their free time usually are better and faster than those who don’t. It has to do with the fact that if you’re programming in your free time you probably like programming and solving problems so you probably will, in general, have better grasp of the language and how to use it. So if you’re an employer looking for an employee wouldn’t you want the one that codes in their free time? It’s like free training every time they do extra code for themselves. Hell most of the time they are writing something to make their jobs easier so their work goes quicker / more smoothly so “you don’t code in your free time” they don’t want to hire you. Go find a job where they don’t care and go home and do nothing. Don’t clutter up my Slashdot reading
You're a nutcase. Get help.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Maybe somebody already brough this up and I just missed the thread, but I work on software development evenings and weekends IN MY HEAD. I might be riding my bike, working in the yard, playing with my son, watching tv or just having dinner...but in the back of my mind, I'm thinking about the right way to solve a pogramming or software design issue, planning out a class hierarchy, imagining what utility functions I'll need, or worst-case, pondering the cause of a mysterious seg fault. By the time I get back into the office I've usually got a pretty solid plan worked out and I can just start coding.
Haven't people always tried to separate Business and Pleasure. People who do a job like to use their free time to escape that job. It doesn't mean they hate that job or that don't like doing it...its just that after doing a 40+ hour week most people want to sit back, enjoy a sports game, or go fishing or something.
it is one thing if your a programmer who is fresh out of college and you still want to learn some new languages and new skills but when your a 30+ year old programming veteran with a family the last thing you would want to do or should do is be sitting there working on some pet project instead of being with your friends and families enjoying the little things.
That is the problem with this country vs. Europe. We don't know to enjoy the little things anymore. I mean as a programmer who is cooped up in a chair and a cubicle/office the last thing you should be doing is spending more time behind a computer. Go outside, read a book, and relax.
In fact it wouldn't be much of a venture to say that people who leave work at work and not take it home are probably more productive and happy. Wouldn't you want an employee who puts all their effort in at work and relaxes at home so they don't get burnt out. I think that employers who only hire people who do pet projects are quite simply delusional. Who cares what people do at home, that not your time, unless of course you want to pay them extra for it (which no one will).
I use to code in my free time but there is too little of it and too many things for me to do. If you wont hire me because of that then good I don't want to work for a rude dictator anyway :)
It's even more absurd than that. He said if you make $50/hr you really make $16.70/hour. Unless hr is a new metric of time that I am unfamiliar with rather than an abbreviation for hour, his statement is absolute gibberish.
~ I am logged on, therefore I am.
Reading first few lines of the blog, perhaps a "FOSS ageism" subject is in order?
Dude, it doesn't take a medical degree to spot a nutcase, only to treat one. Get help.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
No, but it takes a license in psychiatry & a formal examination to evaluate someone else's mental state
No actually, it doesn't. Your hangup on credentials is clearly part of your problem.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Now, care to show us that you are an attorney?
When have I ever claimed to be an attorney?
You're in the running for a balsa gavel award yourself though, after that hilarious remark up thread about how you might be slandered (hint: what does the word "anonymous" mean?)
you outright RAN
Nope. I declined to jump through the hoops you tossed up. If I had run, I wouldn't still be here poking your paranoid carcass.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."