[Tarrosion]

I absolutely agree that when hiring an artist, you want that person to be excited about art. I suppose in a nutshell, my thought is: all time is your own time. Choosing to pursue a career in <art | programming | etc> is a monumental investment of your own time into <X>. We ought not judge as terribly different those who spend ~50 hours a week of their own time doing X and getting paid for it and those who spend ~50 hours per week of their own time doing X and getting paid for it and also spend 2 hours per week doing X on the side.

This is particularly true of developers: generally speaking, someone who has the technical ability to be a strong developer could make a good living in finance, accounting, consulting, etc. The very fact that they're applying for a software job rather than something else is a powerful signal that they'd rather spend half their waking hours on software than on something else.

...or am I missing something obvious? - wouldn't be the first time.

[kstrauser]

I don't disagree with you in general, but we're in the context of people starting new careers. A professional <artist | programmer | etc> will have a portfolio of on-the-job work they've done. A recent grad only has the fact that they've graduated and not anything to really demonstrate their aptitude or abilities. I'd be skeptical of such a student who'd never branched out to do something fun during their entire learning time.

But back to the career professional context. I think maybe I've identified the disconnect. Could it be that asking about personal projects is a way of identifying not just a competent developer but an actual geek? Those are different roles with different requirements. For example, you probably don't want to unleash a geek on your legacy business logic maintenance project. They'll probably be bored and end up breaking stuff in the name of optimization or cleanup. Similarly, you don't want "just" a programmer in your R&D team where you genuinely want and need creative innovation.

So maybe both sides are correct: for some jobs, it's completely appropriate to expect personal projects. For others, it shouldn't be expected at all. What do you think?