[Tor3]

Well.. this assumes that coding (all coding?) is a burden.. I agree with the article in that coding _for_ work, outside of normal work hours, isn't something to strive for. I did that a lot when I was young, but that was not only when it was necessary due to the strained time schedules we had then, it was also because I literally hungered for it. I needed to. So I would go back to work after dinner and hack away to figure out how the OS worked, deep inside, for example. Writing or modifying device drivers, writing tools that extended the OS functionality, that kind of things. Back when things were new.

These days I don't, as a rule, code for work outside of work hours. But I need to code in my spare time. That's when I can do things that really interest me, side projects where I can enter the 'flow', something I nearly never can do at work anymore. I have to go into flow mode now and then to keep up my ability for concentrating on problems (and yes that's necessary to keep up my work performance too). A few years back the constant interrupts at work degraded my performance so much that I spent my three week holiday in various cafeterias, with a laptop and documentation, and worked all day on my hobby project, finally re-learning to enter the flow again. As in "I looked up, and five hours had passed". Myself, laptop computer, documentation, coffee, food available. Happiness.

[badfrog]

If that's what you want to do with your time, cool. This article is aimed at people who don't want to do that but feel like they have to.

[zachsnow]

The article states that by not coding at home you can “have a life, too”, implying you won’t have one if you code at home. This idea is repeated in the article, suggesting to me that it is more than just clickbait.

That’s dumb. Of course you can “have a life”, regardless of whether your hobbies include something you also get paid for. Denigrating folks as not having a “life” for this reason, even as a rhetorical device, is dumb.

[foobarchu]

I think you might be reading into it too much. It's not an angry article, and it never dismisses people who do like to code outside of work. The title is meant to support people who don't want to code in their free time. Maybe they chose those particular words poorly, but it doesn't take away from the overall premise.

The author even says, after listing activities one might do outside work, "But is it really necessary? That is for you to decide." It's about not needing to feel obligated to be into all that, not disallowing it.

[nambit]

You get better at coding, just like any other skill, the more you do it. So yeah, it's ok to not code at home. But all else being equal, the people who do are better coders.

[Balgair]

I think it a lot more nuanced than that. People that go home to work on github repos that are essentially just copy-pasting from HackerRank are not doing themselves any favors. I mean, sure, their repo looks better to HR drones. If that is what they are worries about, no problem.

But if they are really trying to get better, then they have to do 'deliberate' practice. Just grinding through things isn't the end-all-be-all. You have to really be trying.

I know that's a bit glib, but I think that there has been some good work done in this area of 'deliberate' practice recently. Cal Newport, Dan Coyle, Josh Waitzkin, Tom Sterner, and others have written a fair bit about the deliberate part.

A good intro with good sources is here: https://jamesclear.com/deliberate-practice-theory

[badfrog]

> But if they are really trying to get better, then they have to do 'deliberate' practice. Just grinding through things isn't the end-all-be-all. You have to really be trying.

Not only that, but the types of coding you can do at home are often much different than your work. Most hobby projects won't give you a chance to process terabytes of data or serve data to hundreds of millions of clients or send bytes across the country with microwaves. So if your job is related to any of those things, you're not going to improve much at home.

Also, much of what companies value in software developers isn't raw coding ability. You have to be able to work with other people, understand business requirements, convince people to help on your work, etc, etc. From that perspective, somebody who spends their evenings at bars talking to strangers might be building more important career skills than the person who codes all night.

[TeMPOraL]

> Not only that, but the types of coding you can do at home are often much different than your work. Most hobby projects won't give you a chance to process terabytes of data or serve data to hundreds of millions of clients or send bytes across the country with microwaves. So if your job is related to any of those things, you're not going to improve much at home.

Then again, most jobs won't give you that chance either.

It can be that coding hobby projects can be your only chance to learn how to write good, readable, maintainable and performant code. If your job involves churning out features for customers or closing tickets, you will not have time for anything other than "your best under time pressure". Hobby projects can give you opportunity to improve the quality of code you produce by default.

[bovermyer]

On personal projects I have entered a flow state so deep that, when my wife interrupts me to remind me I skipped breakfast and now it's lunchtime, it takes me a few moments to actually be able to understand her. It's like she's speaking a foreign language.

I have never had that happen at a day job.

[keanebean86]

I've done this to lesser extents a few times. Last week I read the comment below and it legit scared me. I've been getting up and walking a lot more because of it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19699955

[bovermyer]

Yeah, that's a problem that I haven't had yet, but I really need to work on avoiding. I spend way too much time sitting.

[cik2e]

This is a perfect way to get into intermittent fasting!

[bovermyer]

Accidental fasting is not a good thing. I know this from personal experience.

[jklm]

What happened out of curiosity? Asking as someone who’s been doing this for ~20 years.

[barry-cotter]

You can get tired, cranky and angry easily and fast. It’s much worse if your sleep has been bad recently. You can make really poor decisions and offend people or do stupid things you’ll regret because of non-existent willpower. You can also faint which is dangerous even if you fall down relatively safely, never mind if you crack your head open or if you’re in the middle of doing something even moderately dangerous.

Start fasting by skipping breakfast and work your way up to skipping lunch and then doing a full day fast if you’re going to do it and always stay hydrated. If you’re doing a long fast make sure you’re getting salt too, even if it’s not hot enough that you’re sweating much. Take it easy and go slowly like with starting a new exercise regimen.

[mruts]

I don’t code after work, instead I just focus my efforts on coding for the firm. That way I can get rewarded for it.