[wfleming]

I don’t think tinkering outside work/class is required to be a good programmer. Nobody rags on accountants for not fiddling with spreadsheets as a hobby. I think the frequent expectation in tech that programmers live & breath code all the time is actually pretty unhealthy. I got into programming as a hobby, but the longer I’ve been a professional at it the less I do in my free time because I just don’t think it’s mentally healthy to do the same thing 80 hours a week.

I do think there’s a risk, if he doesnt also pursue programming as a hobby, of being out-competed by those who do. But not to point of it not being a viable career, just maybe not being like top-of-the-heap. Which is fine, it’s a big industry, not everyone needs to be the best.

The other thing I’ll note is that programming is definitely a career that requires ongoing professional development. Tech changes, you gotta keep up with it to stay relevant to some degree. A lot of that ends up being on-the-job, but like other jobs some it inevitably isn’t.

With those caveats addressed: if he’s doing well and continues to do well, I think it’s entirely possible to have a career programming without also treating it as a hobby.

[gidorah]

I am an accountant. Can confirm that my clients would be unimpressed if I had learned the trade by tinkering on accounts.

Coding seems to be a minority career where there is expected to have an extracurricular interest in it.

[dns_snek]

I don't think tinkering outside work/class throughout your life is required to be a good programmer, but it teaches you extremely valuable skills early on, such as setting goals and working to achieve them, breaking problems down into manageable pieces. You will encounter various issues of all kinds and learn how to look for solutions online. You also learn how to find and use documentation, you'll probably encounter industry-standard tools such as Git, learn the basics of Unix-like systems and a lot more, depending on what you're tinkering with.

I wouldn't expect someone who's 35 with 10 years of professional experience to tinker outside of work, but I'd raise an eyebrow at someone looking for a programming job straight out of college who doesn't have a single side project to share, no matter how small or insignificant.

To me that says that they don't enjoy programming, it would be like hiring a mechanic who's never worked on their own car. Programming can be hard and stressful so you need to enjoy it to persevere through problems that leave you scratching your head, otherwise you'll quickly burn out and be out looking for another job.

I'm not advocating for people to sit in a dark room 12 hours a day and grind through Leetcode problems, or to spend all of their free time programming to prove themselves and "get ahead of the competition". However I've never met a programmer who's never showed interest in tinkering at any stage of their life.