It's perfectly fine to only code at work, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Ben Halpern
Feb 17
Here's a thread from the community a little while back:
What's your opinion on programmers who are not passionate about programming, have no side projects and only program at their jobs. Not senior devs either, just programmmers, who are not juniors anymore. Can they ever improve, write better code? Or do they stagnate.
I wanted to share this wonderful top comment:
Us humans put a lot of pressure on one-another and there are a lot of competitive, unhealthy environments that cause us a lot of pain. We also each have different personal contexts which ultimately guide our lives a lot more than 1's and 0's.
I would be careful about assuming they're not passionate because they don't code in their free time. At one point I was a single mom and couldn't find time to code unless I was at work. That didn't mean I wasn't learning new things while I was at work, or that I wasn't interested in technology. :)
Passion to learn and strive to be better is what sets people apart from becoming stagnate.
If you want to code in your spare time, go for it, but this career is an absolute marathon and being able to take yourself away from your computer more often is a strength as far as I'm concerned.
@_patrickgod has a lot of good posts on maintaining healthy habits and they all touch on balance.
I'm getting ready to escape into a bit of nature for the weekend and wanted to take a minute to share some great tips from the community on the subject of escaping. I hope it helps someone out there.
Happy coding!
Ben Halpern
A Canadian living in New York, having a lot of fun cultivating this community! Creator and webmaster of dev.to.
bendhalpern
benhalpern
benhalpern.com
This is something I've been trying to remind myself about everyday for the past while - that coding only for work is okay and that I don't need to feel bad about it.
I feel like there's an unintended pressure of needing to make coding my entire life and actively contribute, or at least spend large amounts of time on, because it feels like something that's standard as a dev. A lot of it comes from spending time on places like Github, Reddit, Twitter, blogs, YouTube, and other forms of social media where I see so many devs coding outside of work, being passionate about it, and contributing a lot to the community. It's a good reminder that not all devs are the same. We're all different people who work differently where some see coding as a passion while others not so much, like in other kinds of jobs.
That being said, right now I may need to put in a bit more time towards coding outside of work because I want to get better at some skills for the future. So instead of going in with a mindset of feeling like I have to do it, I hope to go in feeling like I want to do it.
Coding outside of work is a wonderfully awesome pursuit. The pressure to do so is either misguided or self-manufactured.
I go through periods of lots of coding outside of work and periods of no coding outside of work depending on my motivations and interests at the time.
I personally almost always read about coding or listen to dev podcasts outside of work. I spend a lot of time reading dev.to, of course. But doing so in a lean-back mode as opposed to lean-forward mode is definitely different.
Our brains, motivations, personal goals, energy levels, family-lives, are so utterly variant that being overly prescriptive about how others should manage their careers is a recipe for disaster. I casually take part in open source but I could not fathom being a maintainer of a popular project outside work. It seems hellish to have the kind of responsibility that comes with that. But people do it and love it, even if it burns them out sometimes.
I watched this talk by Sam Phippen about the process of keeping rspec up-to-date with new Rails versions and the pain an commitment it takes blows my mind.
I could see a time in my life in the future where this could be a lot of fun, but at the moment it does not compute. When I was newer to software development I definitely felt the pressure to take part in all these activities, but none of it's all optional.
P.S. I'm going to be making more posts like this. If you want to embed a comment, take its ID code and write it in a post like this:
{% devcomment 1b1m %}
I think it's a great way to boost interesting things I read around site and will look to build features to make doing so ergonomic.
I think what would be great as well as the ability to preview your comment if you embed stuff like twitter or a devcomment. Also, can you include tags in comments? Testing #meta
Looking forward to it. Keep up the great work Ben and Co.!
You can't include tags but you can include people in comments @nickytonline !
That's a great addition, I'll have to find a way to use this in future posts!
🙌 I think it will be a lot of fun once the subtleties of the UI/UX of the behavior are worked out
I’ll try and wrap this all into hopefully a cohesive comment which will probably go on a tangent or two and may or may not ruffle some feathers. This probably should be a blog post as it already feels lengthy in my head, but I’m not in a headspace to write a blog post right now.
I’ll preface this with I do enjoy coding outside of work, I do contribute to OSS, enjoy blogging etc. I consider myself a passionate developer and I enjoy my craft. I have mixed feelings about all this.
I don’t think you need to contribute to OSS and just because you don’t, doesn’t mean that you’re not a great developer.
However…
Unless you're super gifted and never have to put any effort into anything, if you want to improve your skillset or add a new skill, there’s no other way than putting in the extra time. Maybe it’s just the places I’ve worked at, but none of my employers have ever given me free time at work to learn tech that we weren’t using unless there was a need to incorporate this tech. So, if I want to learn something new, I have to put in the time outside of work.
We weren’t using React at work at a previous job, but I wanted to learn it in the hopes of using it at a future job. I started reading up on it, doing some tutorials etc. Once I started coding, I decided that a great way to keep learning would be to contribute to an OSS project. I could learn from others and potentially help others. I was glad I did because I’m enjoying working with React in my professional tool belt at the moment. To get there though, I had to go the extra mile.
Nick Taylor@nickytonline@kylewelch @jesslynnrose @geekygirlsarah @housecor Right back at you guys too. It's been super fun contributing to and helping maintain react-slingshot. Like @kwelch, I used this project as a starting point to learning React. #reactslingshot #oss #reactjs18:49 PM - 02 Jan 20181
1
This doesn’t just apply to software. It applies to anything, even carpentry. Apologies in advance, but it’s so easy to relate this to sports. When I was playing rugby in university, we practiced 2 hours each day, Monday to Friday and had games on Saturdays. Aside from practices, myself and others would do additional practices on our own to better ourselves. It could be passing a ball to hit a target consistently, going for an extra run and/or hitting the gym to become stronger to be able to take and give a beating on the field. I did all this because I loved the game, didn’t want to let my team down and I just always wanted to be better. Alright end sports analogy.
Nick Taylor@nickytonline@ThePracticalDev I played rugby in CEGEP + university + played club for quite a while w/ @Montrealirish. Nowadays, working out, reading,outdoors. #devdiscuss04:26 AM - 12 Jul 2017
Having said that, I must admit that I struggle with work life balance on a daily basis, but I still try to find time to do other things. Family, hanging with friends, 5 à 7’s, snowboarding, camping, going to the gym and a few moons ago, rugby (which I miss a lot, but my body is done with getting beat up 💪). The easiest way for me to clear my head these days is getting into a squat rack at the gym. Anything that’s bothering me big or small, just vanishes when I exercise.
Everyone is different. Just try and find what works for you and at the same time keeps your sanity.
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for listening to my ramblings. Now it's time to head to a friend's birthday 🍰. Ciao for now.
Hello!
I can relate to not ever working on a place where they give you time to study, unless is something worth for them - and even that was rare. I recall one time a former boss said to me I was wasting time studying. His exact words were: "Don't you think you should stop reading and do some work?".
So, when I was out of the office, I was, usually, studying stuff for my job - not improving skills the way I wanted, not earning knowledge for my mid term goals.
So, after one event where I got burnt out and lost interesting on almost everything - including playing as a scrum half -, I decided I would dedicate less time into "work" and enjoy more my free time.
Nowadays, sometimes, I do feel guilty for not having side projects or studying that much. But on the other hand, if I'm tired after a stressful week, I just spend the weekend doing things I like (which, until last year, playing rugby was part of it).
Having that in mind, I do agree with the sports metaphor as in putting extra effort for self and collective improvement. However, if the said improvement comes in the spent of your mental health and creating impossible standards of performance, I believe a step back is a better choice.
Be that just plyaing touch or beach rugby for leasure, be that not worrying about you are not committing to any side project.
Cheers!
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My father is a carpenter. If he needs or wants something for himself or something needs fixing, then he will build it, but he won't start to build a house, just because he has some free time.
I am the same with software development. There are things that I will code for myself, those are things that I want or need, things that save me time or just things that I do for fun. Nothing of those is comparable to things I code professionally.
I don't have the time for that, I have a wife, I have a son, I have friends... and a shit-ton of shows on Netflix that I want to watch.
In my experience the people who spout this are the ones that like blogging, tweeting etc. I.e. The loud developers. In reality I don't think this is as wider held belief as it might appear.
Also as someone that has spent over 20 years working with computers, I can tell you it is bad for your body to spend so much time in front of a screen.
Finally you are more likely to find a problem to solve if you mix with people from outside the software development trade.
As Developer, sometimes I work in personal projects as a hobby apart from my regular job... but sometimes we need to take a time out of that to give a break to our brains so, I think that a balance is always necessary; going back to the main topic my opinion is that if you really like what you are doing at work, and you just want to focus on that because that makes you feel happy, then there's no problem.
Just do what you like :D
I think this topic is definitely worth being addressed, as it depends a lot on the various approaches and perspectives that developers have towards programming.
As someone with a previous background in music who has had the pleasure of spending time with some really gifted musicians, I know that there are many musicians who love to play and so they devote a lot of their free time to practicing their craft, but there are also many talented musicians that primarily only play during rehearsals, gigs, ect... and feel that doing other activities in their free time helps them to prevent their playing from getting stale or burned out.
So in my opinion, there really isn't a need to feel pressured to constantly be programming, instead, developers should do what they feel will help them live balanced, productive and healthy lives.
Whoa! I only just saw this post. Coincidentally, after a weekend away from code and technology on the beaches of Portugal.
I really appreciate that you found my input on this topic compelling enough to share. Cheers!
I really like this format of post. There are nuggets of gold sprinkled all throughout the comment sections on this site, bringing them to the top level is a great idea!
I think the important bit is in the sentence, "40 hours a week of writing software is plenty to facilitate growth and improvement, given an environment that supports that growth".
It's unfortunate, but I think fewer work environments support developer growth than don't. It just gets talked about so much on social media that we think it's the norm, and it makes us sad that our jobs aren't like that.
Of course, it shouldn't be the case that people feel they have to do anything outside the office that they don't want to.
I thought exactly this as I wrote that sentence. I've been immeasurably lucky in that every organisation I've worked for has made the professional and technical growth of their employees a top priority.
It never fails to make me sad that this is nowhere near the norm for the industry at large. As a consultant, it's this type of culture that I try to take with me to every client I visit, and in most cases our clients catch on pretty quickly that giving people time and space to grow makes everything better, for everyone.
I've only once met a pretty good developer that didn't have pet projects on the side and didn't do things like reading up on new technology in their free time. Not saying it's impossible, but am gonna say it's rare.
Full disclosure; have been a developer for most of my working life which means some 30 years now. Not a year has gone by that I haven't started (and killed of) a new project.
Though I think this is true, there are ways to incorrectly interpret or apply this idea.
Consider the carpenter analogy, it's a different domain of work and the range of specific skills is much narrower than programming. It's quite possible as a programmer that you're stuck in a job that doesn't developer a range of skills, and you become highly specialized. In this case, like in many jobs, you'll actually need to do outside education to break out of the mold.
Some people like programming and it is their hobby. Most of the people I know that write software in their spare time are not doing it as a continuation of their work. They have side projects, or hobbies, that just happen to also involve code. Technology is a diverse domain, and code is an amazingly adaptable tool. There's no reason somebody should actively avoid a hobby only because it uses similar tools to their jobs. To continue the analogy, that'd be like a carpenter that avoids taking up wood carving as a hobby.
As to passing judgement on skills, well, it gets tricky here. Somebody that write software day in/day out is more likely to know more things -- it's not a guarantee, but it's likely. However, somebody that just does their job 12hours a day is likely to be burnt out, undermotivated and locked into specific skills. It'd be foolish for an employer to not recognize achievements outside of work. This is true of anything though, not just coding.
I really like this response. You're absolutely right that this idea can very easily be interpreted to mean "you should never code outside of work". Which I believe to be equally as poisonous to a developer as "you must always code outside of work".
Everything in moderation, as they say.
I also mostly agree with your perspective around judgement of skills. More practice definitely makes a higher skill level more likely. But I don't know that someone who just works their day job is likely to be any of the things you describe. My experience (as described in my initial comment) certainly doesn't indicate that. Granted, that's not a massive sample size, but it's enough to challenge the assumption.
I'm certainly not suggesting that employers should not recognise achievements outside of work. They should. But they also shouldn't immediately dismiss a candidate for lack of recent github activity (or similar extracurricular activity indicators), which I've seen a little too much of lately.
I just meant to say there are positions where you'll end up stuck in a mold needing outside education to break out. There are many jobs where this does not happen, but there are many where it will happen. There's a large range of job quality in terms of career development.
Considering that most dev work still isn't done in the open, I also find it questionable that people judge others by their public contributions, like on GitHub, or open source projects. You can't really expect that everybody works in the open, or that even their public work reflects their business work.
Of course it's fine to just code at work. On the other hand, it's obvious if you don't continue learning, then you will get stuck in a time capsule. So the question itself contains two conflicting truths. So, when both sides have a point, then the classic answer is, it depends. I think we all know the best way to grow your career though.
I'm definitely a proponent of work/life balance, and I feel that no-one should ever feel pressured to work undue hours, whether on employer time, or one's own.
HOWEVER...
This industry is a bit more unique compared to more traditional engineering/architectural disciplines. For me, the carpenter analogy starts to break down pretty quickly.
Sure, the carpenter isn't building houses in their spare time because of a carpentry blog they read. But at the same time, the carpenter doesn't have to cope with a new kind of wood being invented every 6 months. The framework of what constitutes solid, effective architectural engineering is not likely to change drastically in the next 12-18 months, or even 2, 3, 4 years.
The relatively steady state of architectural engineering and carpentry practices is in direct contrast to that of software engineering. Given an equally passionate developer and carpenter, the developer will have to work a lot harder to just stay up to date on new techniques and advancements, to say nothing of passion projects that simply build on existing technology.
I agree with the premise of the article: it is perfectly acceptable to only code at work. But I think it's important to have realistic expectations about the ceiling of effectiveness for most people, if they put that in to practice.
Ben! Thank you for sharing my posts! Just came across your article and I feel flattered. :D
Oh, and by the way, I also escaped into nature on the weekend. Hiking in a snowy forest is just perfect for that matter. :)
I like the carpenter analogy because it helped me get to the core of my understanding of this topic.
I agree that carpenters don't spend their off hours building houses just to build them. However, when something needs fixing I'm willing to bet that they are doing it themselves - since this is their wheelhouse. Also, when they go to their favorite home/building supply place they will check out new tools and occasionally talking shop with friends. All this to say they are not building houses, but they are honing their base skills continually (knowingly and unknowingly).
The base skill of a programmer is problem solving. This can take the form of building your own accounting system (because the available software just didn't do it for you - yes, I have control issues) or doing a jigsaw puzzle.
I agree that as programmers we should seek out employers who help us grow 'on the clock' because that makes us happy and therefore a better employee. However, I would be wary of a programmer who refuses to 'walk the aisle' at Home Depot or who doesn't challenge their own approach/thinking to scenarios.
Who am I: I've been coding for over 20 years and during that time have worked as plumbing/heavy repair for a large pool company (believe it or not - just for fun).
I think the post-title says it 💯
I'd like to add that…
…if you don't get a chance to learn/grow at work, go work somewhere else.
…if you feel like not being treated right in general, go work somewhere else.
…if you do overtime more often than occasionally, go work somewhere else.
As long as there are more open positions than devs, we have the leverage and should use it.
I LOVE this, because I've been trying to convince myself that I'm not weird, but to see that other people is passing through same things has helped me to understand that the only thing that matters is feel good about my capabilities and growth. To find this community and be part of it has helped me a lot!
I really love this post. I consider myself a very passionate dev, but have found that sometimes if that passion is indulged TOO much (ie... spending every waking moment coding) it can actually backfire and dev burnout is a very real thing. I've also come to find that many of us are always coding in some fashion even when not overtly doing it; when I'm out hiking or otherwise have removed myself from my computer, I find that my mind starts to meditate on whatever challenge I've been working on and I end up with creative solutions I likely wouldn't have thought up if I had just stayed in the "silo". Sort of relates to what a lot of senior devs have told me throughout the years, which is that often times the best approach is to think more and code less.
It's easy to feel guilty about not constantly coding, especially if you work with someone who is that sort of obsessive dev. It helps to remind yourself that we all bring different things to the table and what works for one person will not necessarily work for others; the journey to knowing all the things will be different for all of us, and that's very much ok.
While I generally agree with this sentiment I’ve been concerned that this also sends the wrong message to boot camp grads about just how much they have to learn still. I’m not saying that means you need to grind every night, but if you aren’t working to improve your skills at that junior level you aren’t doing yourself any favors in the job market.
So my bottom line is YES, let’s encourage balance but let’s be really careful not to give the impression that there isn’t a whole lot more work and learning to do as our careers develop.
Ok, so I just want to add some critical information to this discussion. First, I agree. I agree with everything you've said and additionally, I agree with the top comment by Leighton.
I am one of the people that runs contrast to this 'perfectly fine' scenario. For my entire life since I discovered computers, I have been all over them. Besides just loving "computers" as some sort of innate gift from the Universe, I have many of the symptoms of Asperger, and that is the point and topic of my post. You have not represented my demographic at all, and I think it is important because "we" are probably the entire reason this is even an issue.
The area to focus on is the work/life balance. There is a delineator between them. If you are working 24/7, you are missing several intrinsic needs of humans such as freedom to explore and engage with things for no reason other than you need a break from normal. Anyway, that isn't the point, but I do explicitly acknowledge it.
My point, is that I am the abnormal one, and I might try to push my ideals outward because I value them so much. My personality is not like a normal Autistic person. I am extremely empathetic. I have always struggled to figure out if I simply have Asperger or if I am just mentally gifted. There are articles published on this, and gifted people can exhibit many of the symptoms of Autism. It comes with the mental territory.
For me, I have extremely sensitive Central Nervous System. My sense of touch is very acute. Likewise, my sense of hearing is amplified. Pots and pans banging and vacuum cleaners are incredibly loud to me. My skin is incredibly sensitive.
Case in point, the outside world is so loud and intense for me. I find it calming and soothing to sit at a computer with minimal ambient noise. Obviously, this latched me into computer programming with great efficiency.
I am also extremely creative while being very logical and rational. I don't just gravitate to computers. I gravitate to science and logic. Consequently, I have become very good at everything to do with software development, including graphic design and marketing because I have hyper-fixated on these things for the last 20 years.
It is very important for everyone to note that the Autistic spectrum brings inclination towards hyper-fixation. You will read that "we" can obsess over small details and spend gross amounts of time learning everything there is to learn about a topic, often random topics like Wagons or World War 2 airplanes.
For me, it is programming. It is writing code that does stuff. I can't even begin to describe how it makes me feel to have complete control over my computer and have it excited to do exactly what I tell it to, and due to my extreme empathy, I really love how I don't have to worry about my computer back-talking me or me forcing it to do something it doesn't want to do. It's a non issue because the computer is a machine.
Coding and software development is like a drug for me. It allows me to integrate with the Universe. It's also important to note that you would probably never know this about me in real life, because I can detect empathy very sharply. I know what you are thinking, and I know when I am acting in any way abnormal. Many Autistic people do not share my abilities, but fortunately, I share their strengths in "computing".
I have come here to tell you that there are a lot of us in this industry, and there are two things to note about that: 1) we typically don't act like arrogant, egotistical individuals on purpose. The typical Autistic lack of empathy is a huge contributor here. These individuals are not astute towards social situations. They are hyper-fixated on objects and material things because they are predictable; 2) we have spent SO MANY hours coding that certain things are annoying to revisit and it can feel like talking to a child to yet again explain how some design pattern works in a certain scenario that we notice someone is not using it. When you get offended at these times, try to think that the person is honestly being objective and they aren't trying to hurt your feelings. They are simply excited about what they are talking about. It's more like jumping them at 7pm after they've been working overtime and asking them to do something they could probably do themselves. They might bark a little, not at you -- just outwardly.
Remember, I have spent 10,000 hours coding before I was even 20, and now I'm 33, so it is absolutely disgusting the amount of knowledge I have attained over this time. I also have autistic-grade rote memory, so I can recall facts to freakish levels of accuracy and precision over extremely long periods of time.
I hope I have illuminated this whole area more for us all. My secondary but also main point is that there is a disproportionate number of Autistic and Asperger people in the software development industry because of the reasoning I described above. It is specifically the 'calming of the intense world' that computers can do for a person.
By appealing to this logic, I assert that you will encounter this issue of extreme passion more in this industry than you will in other industries. You don't have to be like me to be a 10x developer, but it kind of helps. Sometimes I code for 20 hours without getting out of my chair. It's no wonder that I sometimes appear "pretty good" compared to others. I try as hard as I can not to expect anyone to do more than 40 hours a week. I recognize over 40 hours a week isn't normal; therefore, I can't expect anything outside of that to be normal. Period.
My final statement after that and to hopefully catch the TLDRs, is that I am totally not normal in the computer industry. I would say the closer a person is to me, the less normal they are because I spend almost all my time thinking about modular components and logically analyzing objects for purposes related to monetization; This kind of stuff is both a hobby and a profession for me.
If you and I both share the goal of optimization and improvement, then we will get a long near-optimal in almost all situations if you are also altruistic desire objectively correctness.
As you can see, I am fairly verbose, but that generally serves well. I am simply conveying symbols. I like to bring positive outlook as a service (POaaS).
A amazing post!
I'm at this stage right now. While doing a nanodegree in Udacity( 4 months ), i was so focused on coding that i've made almost half of the program in two weeks!
Literally, i was not sleeping well and everything i was doing different from coding, i was thinking about code! This made me feel sick and tired in the last weekend, so i took a time to think about that, why i was doing that and why so much pressure by myself, i discovered that's because i wanna move from my country, but i was so obsessed in doing that, that i was trying to be a better developer at any cost( even my health). This post helped me to agree even more with what i was thinking about slow down a bit about coding out of work.
ps: sorry for the bad english.
I have to admit that when hiring, I do look for things like public repos or contributions, but I never fault a developer if they don't have any, or prefer to only code while working.
For me, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." So if I DO find a public repo or other projects that they contribute to in their spare time, it helps me see their passion in the same way a graphic designer may paint or sculpt out of the office. If a developer doesn't contribute in their spare time or code outside of the office, I wholeheartedly agree that is NOT an indication in any way that they are dispassionate about development.
This is a very good article. I study Computer science masters degree and work a as a software developer (part time while studying).
My time is occupied by doing homework assignments for my courses per semester and doing my job. Of course I have free time, but i don't want to spent my little free time on doing programming stuff again, that would burn me out.
I see a lot of people at university who don't do anything besides programming and gaming, and they mostly seem not to have any other life, i.e. a social life.
Many people put an indirect pressure one you by saying that lifespan learning is the goal, and you have to program in your free time. I'd like to, but part time work and university are keeping me busy most of my time...
It's fine but don't think that is all you will need to do to become great. I have been developing for over 20 years and the easiest way to tell if someone is a mediocre developer if they don't code outside of work.
Mediocrity will get you a good job and stable career. But it you want to be great at what you do you need to expose yourself to as much code as possible written by different people at different levels.
This is almost like saying it's perfectly fine not going to school for Computer Science or better Software Engineering. Without the proper education you will only be able to reach mediocrity.
What if Lebron James said I only play basketball during games? Having a passion for something is what separates the good from the great.
I have had the reverse experience at my job. Whenever I share something I've learned while programming off-hours, or from a personal project, my coworkers act surprised that I would do such a thing. In team meetings, I've even been openly mocked for it.
It won't stop me from programming in my free time (when I have it), but I don't share off-work programming experiences anymore.
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This is a really interesting question. I guess it helps to reframe it by applying the question to other jobs.
What's your opinion on carpenters who don't build houses in their free time?
I've met a broad variety of developers in my time, and a large portion of them have been the type who have a skill that they use for work, and don't care to indulge in outside of business hours. Instead they use their free time to build boats, go surfing, paint, write, cook, raise families etc.
Some are tech leads, some are CTO's, some are juniors, the remainder are everywhere in between. Some of the best technical minds I've worked with have been superb at completely separating their work and home lives.
I noticed quite early in my career that there's an (in my opinion) undue amount of pressure on developers to be coding/reading/meetup-ing 24/7 lest they fall behind. The truth, as I've grown to understand it, is that 40 hours a week of writing software is plenty to facilitate growth and improvement, given an environment that supports that growth.
I've been lucky enough to work for organisations who take their employees growth very seriously, and as such provide ample opportunity (at work) to dabble in new technologies, learn and grow.
The idea that the only way you can avoid stagnation as a developer is to let your job consume your life* is pervasive, but very poisonous none-the-less.
Having said that, no-one's trying to stifle anyones passion here. If you love to code, do it at every opportunity you get. But be careful when passing judgement on the skill, growth and development of folks who don't share that same level of passion.
*maybe not your whole life, but a significant portion of it