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Discussion on: Should you write code all the time, even in your free time?

 
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Patricio Ferraggi • Edited

Hey, Shauna thanks for answering back, let me first say that I don't consider gaming fooling around, I myself played video games since I was a kid and although I haven't owned a gaming rig for the last 3 years I am still waiting for the moment when I can build one back(moving from country to country doesn't play very well with this). I totally agree that gaming can be a gate to relaxation and can produce some solving problem ideas, actually, my first pieces of code were game hacks for a very old RPG haha.

What I meant was that time is precious and in my opinion, it should be focused. If you play videogames because you made the conscious and rational decision of relaxing and play some games that is totally fine by me. If, on the other hand, someone spends a lot of time playing games just to do "nothing" (and I use to be that way), I think there could be much better ways to use that time, and that doesn't have to be coding, it can be anything as long as you decide to do it and make the most of it.

I don't quite agree though that you should only make code if you find a problem to solve, sure our main line of work is to solve issues, but there is much more into software than that. Just as an example, for the last few months I have been reading about Category Theory, I have 0 requirements to do so, there is no real problem right now I can solve with Category Theory, I just do it because I think it is fun, I like to see how my knowledge of software development is gonna be transformed because of it. So instead of playing games, I am reading books from weird mathematicians. I don't think one is better than the other, for me games and programming are two different ways to have fun (although I also get paid to do one).