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by topkai22 1479 days ago
I code/do technical work outside work for a number of reasons:

1) I have a problem I want to solve- like making Christmas lights synced to music or building a speed camera out of a raspberry pi (although those mostly use prebuilt solutions)

2) I saw something cool I want to try. I never build anything to publish, just to scratch a curiosity itch.

3) it’s advent of code time. I never do more than a few of them, but I find the puzzles fun.

4) My kids ask me to (this happens surprisingly often- Minecraft mods, websites for selling their artwork, coding a simple game with them)

I also maintain a blog that gets a little technical, but so far no code there.

Finally, my work sponsors internal hackathons, which I make time to participate in. The doesn’t really count though as it is done on with time.

I don’t spend a ton of time coding outside work, but it naturally fits into my life at serendipitous moments.