For the professional programmers - do you still write code for fun at home ?

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Do you ever code just for fun?

I've been working as a 'professional' coder for about 11 years. (I've just turned 33.)

When I talk to my collegues, I find that most of them actually don't program any more in their spare time - 8 (or 10 :)) hours a day at their job is enough for them. A difference between me and them might be that I was always programming for fun (demoscene stuff etc.) which is why I got into the field, while most of them picked up programming later on (at university or whatever).

When I get home my head is always full of ideas, so usually I have a hobby-project going on. Is it weird to spend 8 hours a day programming, and then get home, have dinner, and do some more ?

For me the reasons are just
- ideas : trying stuff
- wanting to develop something all by myself, so when it's finished I can claim it as my own victory

How about you ?
And if you do, do you have other reasons to do so ?

Edit:
And if you've got sparetime projects, it might be fun to tell us a bit about it :)
Spamming a link to your site/hobbyproject won't be frowned upon here !

Edit2:
Vote for this if you want to encourage companies to make monitors that'll give you a nice tan ! ;-)

Answer 1

From answers I've seen on here before, I think you'll find that most folks on StackOverflow - at least those who participate a lot - develop on their own time quite a bit.

Personally, I do a little software development at home, sometimes for my own use, sometimes as volunteer work for a couple non-profits I work with. However, family life, a fixer-upper of a house, and a spouse in night school keep me pretty busy after hours.

Answer 2

Yes, I try but I find it difficult. Especially being that I (like others) end up having to work late.

But working on my own hobby projects bring me back to what programming used to be for me... Fun.

My work has killed any ounce of fun -- In high school, I'd stay up over night working on a program with the hopes of... I donno, that doesn't matter. (Learning more?)

Programming was fun and still can be fun, but working as professional has made it a real challenge.

My wife makes hobby projects more difficult.

Further more, I'm trying to maintain a website, TheOpenSourceU.com, that is meant to help others learn about programming. But, unfortunately it is not turning out to be what I wanted it to be. I don't have the time to write the articles I've imagined. I wanted to take the hobby projects that I do and post them and explain my thoughts and ideas on them and get others' ideas and try to improve the design and code in them.

Ultimately, I always want to learn more. Working doesn't allow that. They want the product done and if you don't have experience doing something, they find someone who does to save time. This isn't always true but, for me, often is.

Answer 3

Though I haven't been programming professionally for anywhere close to as long, I totally understand what you're talking about. Speaking from personal experience I know that the personal projects I take up and what I do at work definitely influence each other in that I become a better programmer through both.

Do I sometimes wonder if I spend an unhealthy amount of time in front of a computer? Sure, but on the flip-side, I have to wonder how much the programmers who aren't programming at all in their spare time really enjoy their jobs. I'm inclined to think that people do a better job when they enjoy what they do.

Like most things in life, the key is balance. Although I program at work and at home, I also have other hobbies that get me away from computers once in a while. Just as I think it would be strange for a programmer to not enjoy developing personal projects (time issues aside - it's a question of enjoyment), I also think anyone spending ALL of their time programming may have a problem.

Answer 4

I would answer this in detail, but my current hobby project needs a bug fixed and better help text written... so that's what I am going to do now. On Saturday. At home. On my own time.

Answer 5

After a full day of programing at work, at home on evenings and weekends, I do substantial amounts of open-source work, as well as many small personal "fun" projects that aren't yet ready to open-source (many of the latter "toy" projects for the purpose of learning some new technology or some aspects of various technologies that I haven't fully fathomed yet). So yeah, there's a lot of that going around (though in my case the "by myself" part is not a particular draw: e.g., I love pair-programming with my wife, and in open-source the cooperation with other developers is also a big attraction).

Answer 6

I got into programming (many years ago) because I enjoyed it, but lately just find I do not have enough time (or energy) for hobby coding. My work has expanded beyond just programming and encroached on other aspects of my time.

I'd like to take several months off work to just spend time on a hobby code project. Maybe next year........

Answer 7

Yes, I do. But as others have mentioned, working long hours takes the energy that it requires away, so it depends very much on my current workload and my mood in general. I think there's several reasons that I do it:

• Work can be incredibly monotone. I have a need to push my limits and expand my views, and most jobs out there just doesn't allow that.
• It's nice to do something for my own sake so that I can make my own decisions once in a while.
• The incredible rush that I get from solving a difficult problem.

I work mainly in PHP and Java, but I really enjoy trying new things and experimenting with new technologies. Here's what I'm currently up to:

• I've done some win32 programming lately simply because I want to see how it's done on a more basic level.
• I also do some linux programming, and all of a sudden I feel an urge to learn assembler.
• I have a long list of "cool things" that I want to do some day. The most recent idea is to write a newtonian physics simulator, and see if I can accurately model the solar system.
• I devote a lot of my free time to reading must-read programming books. I'm currently reading Effective Java (which has to be the best book I've read in a very long time) and Programming Pearls.

Despite all this I realize that I can't become an expert in every discipline, but I do believe that trying a lot of different things really do help you become a better programmer in general.

But as I said, what I can muster depends a lot on my mood. I'm in a bit of a flow now, but for large parts of the year I spend almost no free time programming.