
It’s perfectly OK to only code at work - ryandrake
https://zeroequalsfalse.press/posts/it-is-ok-to-only-code-at-work/
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toomuchtodo
Previously (12 hours ago):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19806960](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19806960)

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jdoliner
It's also perfectly OK to not write code at all, that's what the vast majority
of people do. Which isn't to say if you're not writing code in your free-time
you should quit altogether. It's just to say that what's "OK" isn't a terribly
high standard.

I've always felt guilty if I'm only coding at work, because I've always felt
that if my employer is willing to pay me X dollars an hour to code, then they
must be getting at least X dollars of value out of my work, and likely they're
getting much more. So I felt like I was letting myself down if I wasn't also
using this skill in a way where I could capture all of the value I was
creating, rather than sharing it with my employer. Unlike with most
professions where you can't really do the work outside of a larger corporate
setting, programming all by yourself can actually produce very valuable
things, that you can reap all the rewards of for yourself.

But not everyone thinks this way, and making progress on programming projects
by yourself is very hard, especially if you also have a full-time job. So I
agree with the author about the ok-ness of not doing it.

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abtinf
The value of the work you do at home is a small fraction of the value you
produce at work. Employers risk a lot of money on engineering, but even more
on marketing, sales, product management, support, vendors, operational
processes, legal, infrastructure, and more. Each of those areas acts as a
multiplier on the value produced by everyone in the organization.

~~~
rjzzleep
Is it? I'd wager most human beings can't just turn off their head when the
clock hits 6 pm. So you will think about work, think about problems at work
and your mind will inevitable work on issues you experienced at work when you
sleep.

Sure, none of it visible, but I find the way we think about productivity
highly questionable.

~~~
abtinf
I meant my comment in the context of the person I was replying to, who was
considering working on something at home that is unrelated to their day job.

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staticassertion
I always _want_ to tell people things like this, to take care of themselves
and not overprioritize work.

At the same time I've never done that and it's in large part why my career has
gone so well.

It's "OK" either way, live life how you want to. But if someone asked me for
_career_ advice and said they don't know how much time they should spend
outside of work on programming, I'd have a hard time telling them "no time at
all".

If your goal is to advance your career, yeah, my advice is to program in your
free time.

If your priorities are different - maybe your career is already set, and you
want to focus on life - sure, don't program in your free time.

~~~
solipsism
Depends on what you want out of a career too. The big FAANG type companies
don't tend to care at all about your GitHub, so "practice whiteboard problems"
is better advice for someone looking for that of job.

~~~
staticassertion
I don't think any company cares that much about your github. It almost always
comes down to the interview.

But programming in your free time will (likely) make you more effective in
your job, garner recognition/ place you in a programming community, teach you
about new problem spaces, etc.

So while that may not help you move from job to job (I'd argue, however, that
it does), it'll help you accelerate your career within a company.

I don't think it's contentious to say that practice will improve your skill,
and improving your skill generally leads to a better (by some definition)
career.

~~~
ori_b
> I don't think any company cares that much about your github. It almost
> always comes down to the interview.

Personally, I would weight a great GitHub more highly than an interview. But
great GitHubs are very rare.

~~~
staticassertion
Sure, I would too. Interviews are mostly stupid.

At small companies where you have more wild-west type procedures you can
probably get away with saying "Github is good enough", but my experience is
that even mid sized companies start to put all of their bags in the interview
basket.

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bigred100
I’m sorry if this sounds bad but I frankly think that computer programming
is... not that interesting. I get satisfaction and pleasure from coming up
with a good way to write some code, but I’d rather read something interesting
from the humanities, read a math textbook, exercise, socialize than write
code. Even study algorithms or complexity (not my favorite academic area but
still quite interesting). (About to get even worse) I just feel that the field
of simply programming is not so deep to require “passion” etc. beyond the
entry level. In my worldview it’s just technical work and I feel sort of
similar about passionate programmers as I would about some guy who is a
plumber who is so passionate that he spends all his free time investigating
plumbing. I don’t really see the point beyond doing a reasonably good job and
taking some craftsman type pride in accomplishing a solid job.

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marcus_holmes
I notice that it's mostly non-coders who are always "you guys should work
harder and be more passionate about your work!"

If I have a coding job, I struggle to code outside it, and prefer doing other
creative projects. If I have a management job, I really enjoy side projects
and hobby coding outside it. It's like I only have 40 hours of coding
creativity per week in me, and if I'm not getting to do that at work, then I
enjoy doing that for fun.

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hippich
And it is also perfectly OK to only code things needed for your employer at
work to the level justified by the salary, and then turn around and create
awesome things for yourself in off-office-work time, if this is something one
enjoys.

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Sir_Cmpwn
Here's the thing: you get better at something the more time you spend on it.
Someone who's been coding for 5 years but codes in their spare time is going
to be as good as or better than someone who's done it for 8 years strictly on
the job. And the effects don't stop, those who code in their spare time will
always be outpacing those who don't and the gap will always be growing between
them. Yes, it's perfectly OK to only code at work - assuming you understand
that your career will advance at a proportional pace.

~~~
xupybd
That depends on the number of hours you're doing. If you're only coding at
work but doing 70 hour weeks, you don't really have the time or energy to code
at home.

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
For a discussion about maintaining a healthy work/life balance, that sure is
far from it.

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52-6F-62
I very much agree with this.

I'm not always one of those people, but sometimes I am. It seems pretty simple
to me.

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seanmcdirmid
I read this as it was ok at work to only code and not do meetings or any other
non-coding activities. I guess other people have different problems.

~~~
Zimmux
That's also how I read it; the intended phrase is 'to code only at work'.

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ngngngng
I'm always interested to hear about when people consider programming a
passion. I code outside of work, but I don't think I would call it a passion.
I'm working on business ideas that I hope will some day be successful, or i'm
sharpening skills so I can get higher paying jobs in the future. I wouldn't
ever code outside of work without the promise of some other return.

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Mandatum
I've found my programming skills aren't the main driver in furthering my
career. It's soft skills, organisation and being able to prioritise.

I have had periods of 6 months where I didn't write a single line of code.
Sure, you forget how much you miss it once you start again - but it certainly
isn't the driving factor in my career any more.

Engineer @ Fortune 500

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carrja99
It's perfectly okay to do whatever you want to do outside of work. I took
slack off my phone more than a year ago and it has been absolute bliss.

I have a hard stop and never work on work related things. If I want to code,
it's for me and for fun.

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keithnz
I sort of agree and disagree.

from a business perspective, yes, it is perfectly ok to code your work hours.

Now, depending on what your work hours involves, it may not be enough for you
to achieve your professional aspirations, in which case, taking the time to
code outside of work hours is a good plan.

It all comes down to what are your personal strategies and goals (including
family and all your interests/hobbies), what are you risks ( like your skills
being too specialized or your skills becoming redundant) and how to mitigate
those. Your job should be a piece of that overall personal strategy.

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miccah
People's free time is just that. Their free time. It's perfectly OK to do
anything you want with that time, and no one has the right to tell you
otherwise.

With that said, I think it's a lot healthier to have other hobbies outside of
coding. It certainly helps with creativity and generally not becoming a robot.
Not to say coding as a hobby in addition to your profession is unhealthy, but
_only_ coding in and outside of work could be.

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jorblumesea
Good life advice, possibly bad career advice? The top flight engineers that I
know are always working. Not always on work related things, but always
working. Hard to tell if it's a 10,000 hours type of thing or just passionate
people don't feel like it's work. All the same I guess.

~~~
52-6F-62
I think, to be fair, the article is about it being okay to be a software
worker in general and not be breathing it 24/7.

It's not evangelizing about how to be the 1 in 10,000. It's rather brief
opining about feeling comfortable _not_ being one of those people, but rather
one of the surely skilled people who fill out the industry—like most skills.

So I guess it just depends on your career aspirations, and your life
aspirations. So yeah—all the same!

