I'm not suggesting someone spend all of their time writing code outside of work, I certainly don't, so please don't label what I'm saying as such, or as "bullshit". Yes employers pull that crap, and want you to sell your soul, that's not what I'm suggesting.
I don't think programming is something you become good at simply by doing your 9-5. I've worked with a lot of 9-5'ers and they're rarely the best or most rewarded developers.
What I'm certainly NOT saying is that you should work _all_ hours, in fact I will say exactly the opposite, don't, but, do be willing (if you're able) to finish solving a problem before you call it a day. For your sake, not for your employer's sake. I prefer to finish my work day on the last "problem solved". It leaves you in a much better position to leave your work at work, than when you have a problem you didn't solve and which will bug you until you solve it. If you find a problem is going to take more than "minutes" to solve, accept that its a problem for another day and try to leave it at that.
To further elaborate on my first statement, so it isn't misinterpreted again;
Do it because you enjoy it, and you _want_ to do more of it outside of work; even if you don't do, but, even IF you don't, you can visit conferences, meetups, hack-spaces, various other <insert-tech-or-language>-con, you'll meet cool people, learn about things you didn't know and perhaps teach other something. If you can make it "a way of life", contrary to ck425, do spend _some_ of your free time working on programming tasks, find something different from your work, for example, contribute some time to an OSS project you like (for e.g. I use and like to contribute to Home Assistant) or some other project you enjoy using, where you'll interact with the skilled people behind those projects.
To be clear, that I'm not disagreeing with ck425, just that he (and probably others) might misinterpret what I'm saying as "you should spend all your time programming or else you'll suck": Do all of this, only after you done the other things you enjoy doing more.
I still disagree with you. The idea that you should only become a software engineer if you want to continue it outside of working hours is one of the reasons our industry is primarily made up of white (or Asian) middle class men. It's perfectly ok to do this as a job, a really good job, a career, but still a just job that you don't pursue out of work. When we discourage people who don't want to code in their spare time we discourage valuable alternative view points and create a horrible homogenous industry (despite our industry effecting just about everyone these days). Many people don't have either the time, resources or inclination to pursue more coding out of work. And sure, the techy who does loads of side projects will be a better coder, but there's a hell of a lot more to this job than coding and it's perfectly possibly to be a good engineer while only doing it 40 hours a week. We need to expel this attitude so we can create a diverse workforce, which is proven to be more efficient.
Well, when you put it like that. I can't disagree. I hadn't considered that it puts off people that are not "like me".
I agree that we certainly need more diversity. I've been fortunate enough to work in some reasonably diverse places and I'd hope to see more of it in our industry.
To turn my argument around, I'll say that I'm a Software Engineer _because_ I love it, I would be doing it anyway when I have the time, it's one of my "hobbies" so to speak.
Given that I can't immediately think of a way to re-structure what I've said in my previous comments, to meet this argument of yours, which I agree with, I'll simply concede that I was wrong and leave it at that.
I don't disagree with most of what you say, however: If you have a (code) problem at the end of the day it's often best to just stop - maybe even finish early. When you sit down in the morning more often than not it'll seem much easier to fix, your subconscious will have been working on it overnight.
That's better than sitting there for another hour or two in the evening getting increasingly tired and ineffective, missing dinner, annoying your partner, etc.
I see your point, but, here's mine; My wife is more likely to be annoyed if I'm sitting at home absent minded because I'm focused on the problem I couldn't solve today than she would be if I missed dinner or got home an hour or two late.
This is the part about not taking your work home. I'm often pre-occupied with problems I haven't solved, I find for me, taking the time to solve them, or to be sure that I can't solve it now helps with that.
I'm not disagreeing with you, some problems need to be left for another day, and I've said that already.
What I'm trying to say is that I think we're both right in a way, and that finding balance is what we need.
I don't think programming is something you become good at simply by doing your 9-5. I've worked with a lot of 9-5'ers and they're rarely the best or most rewarded developers.
What I'm certainly NOT saying is that you should work _all_ hours, in fact I will say exactly the opposite, don't, but, do be willing (if you're able) to finish solving a problem before you call it a day. For your sake, not for your employer's sake. I prefer to finish my work day on the last "problem solved". It leaves you in a much better position to leave your work at work, than when you have a problem you didn't solve and which will bug you until you solve it. If you find a problem is going to take more than "minutes" to solve, accept that its a problem for another day and try to leave it at that.
To further elaborate on my first statement, so it isn't misinterpreted again;
Do it because you enjoy it, and you _want_ to do more of it outside of work; even if you don't do, but, even IF you don't, you can visit conferences, meetups, hack-spaces, various other <insert-tech-or-language>-con, you'll meet cool people, learn about things you didn't know and perhaps teach other something. If you can make it "a way of life", contrary to ck425, do spend _some_ of your free time working on programming tasks, find something different from your work, for example, contribute some time to an OSS project you like (for e.g. I use and like to contribute to Home Assistant) or some other project you enjoy using, where you'll interact with the skilled people behind those projects.
To be clear, that I'm not disagreeing with ck425, just that he (and probably others) might misinterpret what I'm saying as "you should spend all your time programming or else you'll suck": Do all of this, only after you done the other things you enjoy doing more.