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Programming Technology

Keeping Programming Fun? 144

Posted by Cliff from the preserving-your-sanity dept.
nb caffeine asks: "Having recently graduated, and now working as a developer, I've discovered that after 9 hours of programming at work, I have little interest in coming home and working on my personal programming projects. I've become upset with this fact, because while I was in college, I spent quite a bit of time working on personal projects for my own use. I also noticed this trend during my summer internship, and I have a feeling that it isn't going to get any better. It's not to say that I don't get to work with cool technologies at my job, but they aren't anything that I would pick up in my spare time. So, how do my fellow programming geeks balance work related projects and personal projects? Or, if you've already discovered that after 9 hours of programming, the last thing you want to see is a computer, what hobbies does the Slashdot crowd enjoy after they've ruined their hobby by turning it into a job?"
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Keeping Programming Fun? More

Keeping Programming Fun?

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  • Consider quitting.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by phoenix.bam! ( 642635 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @09:39PM (#9849613)
    I'm consider leaving my programming position for an unrelated field. Programming is my hobbie, not my career i realized. Business programming is dull, and drains me of the motivation to work on something ejoyable. (boss, this is NOT my two week notice.)

    • Re:Consider quitting.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 30, 2004 @09:43PM (#9849646)
      You might not have to swich careers in order to keep it a hobbie. If you code C all day and you come home and... code C all night, then yeah, it's going to get old. But some people (such as myself) are okay with coding C during the day, and doing crazy stuff in Ruby at home.

      Either way, it's better to have non tech hobbies as well.
      • "coding C during the day, and doing crazy stuff in Ruby at home."

        I don't have a Ruby at home you insensetive clod! Oh you meant the language?

      • I think that post gave the two key points.

        Firstly, even geeks need a little non-geeky relief some times. Play some sport that doesn't involve a simulator, play games other than D&D with friends, go see a movie for more than the SFX.

        Secondly, working 9-5 (or 6, or 7...) on something, day in and day out, can take away whatever joy you once felt for it, at least sometimes, but you can still enjoy related things on your own time. For example, I write C++ for a living at work, but right now at home I'm p

      • OP: Doom III comes out this week.
        If that doesn't fix your 'I don't wanna do computer stuff no more' blues, then it is time to start a new path in life, one without computers.

        I have found that by occasionally buying myself new things like computers, cars, motorcycles, toys, lap-dances, clothes, healthy food, paying my rent and bills, and the like ... I can justify to myself the day to day regular job I attend 40-50 hours each week, loving every minute of it (but I'm still new there so give me some time.)

        I'
    • At the risk of being moderated redundant, I have to basically say "me too" to both the post by AC that says to try a different language, and the one by the other AC that says to consider a different computing related career.

      I, for one, am a testing specialist. In that role, I get to play with cool toys and break every application in the company; it's great. I also code in python as a hobby, and even manage to merge the two occasionally. One of the projects I'm working on is teaching me TDD, and it also

    • Well, I don't think quitting is necessarily the answer for everyone...

      I found that as I did more programming at work, my interests in programming diverged to cover the surrounding areas...architecture, design, business analysis, QA, quality processes like Six Sigma, development processes (RUP, XP, Agile, etc). The stuff outside the pure coding started to affect the work I did, and I wanted as much control over it as possible because the effects weren't always positive. Not only did I find my interests in

  • Mix menial with creative (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Wade Tregaskis ( 696280 ) <wjtregaskis@students.latrobe.edu.au> on Friday July 30, 2004 @09:43PM (#9849637) Homepage
    I've had similar experiences and concerns. My conclusion is that you only get a few good hours of creative coding per day, if you're lucky. So if you spend that at work, you'll have none left for your own interests. While there's a few ways to solve this (not doing any real work at work is one ;) ), I find the best is to alternate each day between menial and creative tasks. So set aside some days at work to do documentation, specing, testing or whatever, which will leave you with the motivation to do some actually coding when you get home. And then the converse, where you can still do useful things (e.g. documentation) at home, after a good day of coding at work.

    • Re:Mix menial with creative (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I have a similar experience. I used to watercolor and animate using Flash- it was what I lived for. I would ride around my city and just paint pictures of stuff. Then I got interested in Photoshop and Illustrator. At the time, I was only a copy writer at my work until they saw some photoshops I put together and promoted me to the newly created graphic designer position. Guess what I don't do now? That's right, graphic design. My personal writing has picked up, though so my creativity is like a carpet- when
    • I'm not sure how you work, exactly, but testing, specing, and testing are all creative activities. Expressing your work in English prose is at least as challenging as expressing it in C++/Java/C# (and moreso than in Python). Also, work has finally embraced comprehensive unit testing (a la Extreme Programming), and sometimes the most challenging part of the day is figuring out how to test what you're writing in a reproducible way without involving a whole system's worth of other unpredictable components.
      • Well, each to their own. Different projects will have different requirements, in terms of creativity, for their code, documentation et al. In my experience writing it, documentation should be formulated, rigorous and consistant. Consequently, getting creative while writing it is rarely a good idea. Conversely, I've worked on projects coding in entirely the same way. But these are relatively rare exceptions.

  • Tough it through for a while (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Solder Fumes ( 797270 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @09:43PM (#9849648)
    My advice is to work your tail off right now, focus on your job and move up in the company until you achieve a management position. At that point, your job will mostly be personal interaction, aerial views of ongoing projects, and helping develop specifications. That won't burn you out on programming, so you'll be fresh enough to do personal projects. You'll also stay in the loop on current technologies, but not be forced to slog through code unless you want to.

    • Re:Tough it through for a while (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Colonel Panic ( 15235 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @02:09PM (#9853308)
      work your tail off right now, focus on your job and move up in the company until you achieve a management position

      In other words, sell your soul. Yeah, that'll really make you want to work on personal projects.

      That won't burn you out on programming, so you'll be fresh enough to do personal projects.

      It'll just burn you out on life. Wasn't it Henry David Thoreau in Walden who said that most men lead lives of quiet desperation? This corporate management plan sounds like a great way to lead a life of quiet desperation.
      • Um...sell your soul? I assume you're one of the hardcore nerds who want to stay locked in the code-factory forever, and never increase their skillset or even their pay beyond cost-of-living increases? What is this stigma against management? Sure, a lot of them seem to be useless. That's a great reason for smart people to try to get into management. If you have good ideas, you can get much more accomplished by guiding others through the overall plan while they take care of the grunt work.

        It'll burn you out

        • Re:Tough it through for a while (Score:5, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 01, 2004 @11:40AM (#9857876)

          >I don't know one who is quietly desperate about the
          >easier hours, the bigger house and bank account,
          >and improved lifestyle for their family.

          I think you have (at the same time, no less)
          fully agreed with the grandparent and Thoreau, and
          totally missed their point.

          Bravo. You will do well in Management.

    • Well maybe...

      First of all, you have to get this management position. Last I heard, most people are not in management (jokes aside).

      Secondly, what if he doesn't want to be in management. Maybe he'll hate it completely. Maybe he's not cut out for managament.

  • Go freelance (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hsoft ( 742011 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @09:48PM (#9849681) Homepage
    Well, be prepared to live poor, but happy. I'm currently between 2 jobs, and I'm much more actively working on my own projects that trying to find a new job...

    Well, unless I'm very lucky and my business get of and finally gets me money, I will soon have to start working for somebody else than myself, because I'm quite running out of money. However, my plan is to work, hum... 1 year, and pay myself a little 3 months of cool developing... again :)

    As I said in another post a while ago, money not only buys cars and houses, it buys time. Try to save money for that, instead of wasting money on useless crap, getting into debt, and then being *forced* to work because of these debts.

    • Re:Go freelance (Score:5, Interesting)

      by simonfunk ( 592887 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @10:17PM (#9849835) Homepage
      Agreed. This has worked quite well for me. Do consulting contracts that are challenging enough to be both interesting in themselves, and high paying. Work your butt off, and don't spend any money you don't have to (I drove one used $3000 Toyota truck for 10 years). Then when you have enough of a buffer saved up (shouldn't take long!), take a few months or years off to work on your own hobbies. Next thing you know, someone will be wanting to hire you to apply your "hobbies" to their problem, so during those few months a year you do have to work, it will be on something you really enjoy. I've spent the last year just working on my own (programming and more recently robotics) projects, while living in Sweden, Tahoe, and now New Zealand. And my point is not "oh look how studly I am" but quite the opposite -- look how easy it is. My annual budget is about US$15,000, including rent, travel, toys, and food. (It helps that I don't drink, and also that I don't have to drive to "work" every day.) How much consulting do you have to do a year to earn that? Don't forget that if that's *all* you earn, you pay very little taxes. Part of the trick here is to live and earn light, where it's tax-efficient, and then eventually to leap-frog the horrible middle-ground where all your time goes to taxes and living expenses. If you spent six to eight months a year working on your own hobbies, how many years before you had something you could turn into a business of your own? This cycle has worked for me for about 18 years now. It took me a couple years consulting full time to kick it off (get my skills and savings up to snuff), and it's been less and less work and more and more "play" ever since. And even those first two years were fun stuff, since it's easier to find a fun short contract than a fun full-time job. In short, my answer is: don't try to divide the hours of your day into work and play, because as you imply you just can't occupy your brain with all that stuff in one day. Instead, divide the years or months of your life into work and play. It's no harder--it just takes the discipline not to spend the money you're building up.
      • My annual budget is about US$15,000, including rent, travel, toys, and food. (It helps that I don't drink, and also that I don't have to drive to "work" every day.) ...

        This cycle has worked for me for about 18 years now.

        You must not have any kids. Or a wife, or mortgage, car note, braces, tuition, clothes, etc that tradtionally go along with kids.

        • Re:Go freelance (Score:5, Insightful)

          by simonfunk ( 592887 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:44PM (#9850220) Homepage
          I was raised by a single mom (receiving no alimony or child care) who worked as a waitress while going to school part-time. She earned a lot less than I ever did, and we got by (we even backpacked around Europe a couple of times, when I was three and five). I learned a lot from that about what is necessary in life and what is optional. The margin between what people think they need to spend and what they actually need to spend is HUGE.

          One thing that's important to understand is that all productivity is the leveraging of capital [interstice.com], where capital is essentially the sum of the value of your body, knowledge, and property. If you let yourself go into debt (car loans, etc.), you are falling behind the curve. The closer to a net-value of zero you get, the less you have to leverage and the longer it will take to dig yourself out. Conversely, the more you can get ahead of the curve, the more leverage you have, the easier it is to move forward. The lesson in this is: earn first, spend later, never the other way around. Tighten your belts until you get ahead of the curve, and then you can loosen them in measure.

          I recommend the book The Millionaire Next Door; also The Richest Man in Babylon. Both of them basically tell the same story: whatever you're living on now, cut it by a mere 10% and save that. Most anybody can manage that, and the long-term results are spectacular. People (by and large) don't get rich by earning a lot, they get rich by spending less than they earn, over many years.

          In the end, money is time...

          (FWIW, I started consulting at 18, bought my first house at 21, and lived there with two empty bedrooms, and a [debt-free] car I rarely used, for many years. The extra cost of a family would have been incidental.)

          • I was raised by a single mom (receiving no alimony or child care) who worked as a waitress while going to school part-time.

            Yeah, well my dad was a poor Virginia Turd Miner. Then again, his dad was a Goat Ball Licker so we were thankful for what we had.

      • "This cycle has worked for me for about 18 years now."

        You're lucky. You could pile some money before the IT bubble popped.

        Nevertheless, it is encouraging to see that this kind of life can actually work pretty well. Now I have to try to raise my "hobby time/work time" ratio :)
        • The demand for responsible consultants never seems to dwindle. When times are tough, companies chuck all the dead wood, and want consultants more than ever (since they're generally "fresh" and get more done for the money than employees settled in for the long haul). I certainly didn't notice any decline in available work.
      • How do you plan on handling the money you need for retirement. That is what scares me the most about going freelance.

        • Re:Go freelance (Score:3, Interesting)

          by simonfunk ( 592887 )
          My whole strategy is what one might call measured early retirement. :) Seriously, I've been retiring for longer and longer periods as I get older, and I'm well on track to retire permanently in good time. Don't get me wrong -- when I'm working, I'm working long and hard, and at the end of every cycle, I aim to be better off than before. I'm not advocating goofing off until your broke and start again--I'm saying quite simply if you spend less frivilously, you can turn some of that extra cash into savings,

      • Re:Go freelance (Score:3, Interesting)

        by smallfries ( 601545 )
        Interesting approach, it sounds like you've worked out that the key is to spend time doing what you enjoy - everything else is just a chore to get there. I took the other route (they sound fairly equivilent) which was to take a wage drop to do what I wanted to do full time. It's three years on, and it only took a year or so to figure out how much stuff I actually *needed* and what was just fluff. The fluff is gone, and that 'low-paying' job leaves me with more than enough cash every month. I see so many peo
      • thanks for your pearls of wisdom. I've bookmarked it, and I'm going to refer to it often. My resume already looks exactly like what you've described, except it's mostly manufacturing and business rather than IT. I've been bearing loads way beyond my ability, so staying "ahead of the curve" has not been an option for me. I've been living lean, working hard, I don't drink, don't smoke, and don't party, so I'm always either working, or planning my next move. Granted, not much room for fun yet, but after readin

  • Give it time (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jtheory ( 626492 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @09:56PM (#9849723) Homepage Journal
    When I first started programming professionally, my personal projects just stopped -- I was new, so I felt like I had to really prove myself... and this led naturally to excessive hours on work projects, and stress burnout. After some experimentation, though, I managed to sort out my work life so I could be happy, and still have some energy left over at the end of the day.

    If your professional life goes anything like mine, you'll figure out a way to make sure you get enough sleep at night (that alone will give your productivity during the day a big jump, in fewer hours!), and you'll find you have more freedom to push back and control how you spend your time as you gain experience/respect. And once you're more comfortable at work, your taste for personal projects may pick up again.

    Just give yourself a year or two to find a niche at work that you like, then see how you feel. Once you're more comfortable in your domain at work, it'll take less out of you during the day -- so you'll have more energy in the evenings to do what you want (this is where a social life might come in too, btw).

    Really, it'll depend a lot on how your work life pans out -- if you can score super projects at work that you love (and that demand all of your creative energy during the day)... do you still really need those personal projects? Most people dream of doing what they love *and* getting paid for it. Personally, I *like* my work, but the needs of the business don't always correspond with what would be most fun for me... so I have extra energy left to use.

    Good luck!
    • I'll second that.
      How many times I noticed that getting up early and getting your ass from the office yearly improves the quality of code at work and quality of life in general.
      You'll have a choice of spend some time in evening just resting or maybe doing some programming projects for fun. More important you'll have a good rest and no burnout.

  • Work vs Life (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rueger ( 210566 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @09:56PM (#9849729) Homepage
    Your quandry is this: you found programming to be fun. Got an education, and found a job programming.

    Whoops - once programming became your job, it also became work, not fun.

    Really you have only two choices: don't program for a living, or don't program for a hobby.

    The best advice is to find some other interests and leave the programming for work. It will make you a happier person, a more balanced individual, and will expand your circle of friends to a group larger than just programmers. All of those will help you to enjoy your work more which just might make programming fun again.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • To add to that (Score:3, Insightful)

      by devphil ( 51341 )


      Like the old aphorism says: find a job that you love, and you'll never work a day in your life.

      • Re:To add to that (Score:3, Insightful)

        by sql*kitten ( 1359 ) *
        find a job that you love, and you'll never work a day in your life.

        I firmly believe that to be bollocks. In your hobby you are answerable to no-one but yourself. Once you start doing it for a living - whether it's programming or photography or cooking or playing the trombone - you must compromise your art to pay the bills. You must work on what the client wants, to their specification, and deliver by their deadline. Ultimately, when someone hates their job, it's those things they hate, not the work itself
    • I have to disagree... a little...

      I don't think you have to do programming in only one avenue of your life, but you won't have as much to do with it in your hobby, to be balanced.

      Some suggest a different language for a hobby, but I think that's only part of it; do something you're not ALLOWED to do at work. i.e. if you're a games programmer, come home and write database-driven analysis engines... er...

      You'll be surprised sometimes the change of motivation will refresh your mind.

      Of course, be balanced.

  • change languages (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    At work, I have to use fortran and c. At home, I use common lisp. Not much chance of getting them confused. The liquid strangeness lisp makes a relaxing break from the boring fortran and godawful c of work.

  • The anti-computer pastime (Score:4, Interesting)

    by eric.t.f.bat ( 102290 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @09:57PM (#9849737)
    Try joining the Society for Creative Anachronism [sca.org], a sort of cross between medieval reenactment and a social Renn Faire. Medievalism is as far from computing as you can get, which explains why so many geeks join it - geeks are logical, see, and it's logical to want to get away from geeking...
    • Altough I find that most of the people at these places are continue to be geeky. I don't know how many times I heard this when some action started up by swing a sword and exclaming "down w/ microsoft"
    • Ooh, better yet, go as a midieval eunuch by cutting off your reproductive organs. I mean, if anyone ever saw you all dressed up in your cardboard armor, it's not like you'd ever have a chance to use your junk anyway...

  • It's easy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Curtman ( 556920 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @10:03PM (#9849766)
    So, how do my fellow programming geeks balance work related projects and personal projects?

    I cancelled my cable TV subscription, and now I can never think of anything better to do.
    • Since when was cable tv a "better" thing to do, anyway? :)

      I have cable tv, but I rarely watch it. Maybe 1-2 hours a week. And that is usually for some movie.

    • Re:It's easy (Score:5, Informative)

      by floydman ( 179924 ) <floydman@gmail.com> on Saturday July 31, 2004 @07:51AM (#9851684)
      Well what do you know, i did exactly the same. In fact i sold the TV set with it too. You wanna know what happened, i suddenyl had this tremedous amount of time to use in reading, going to a gym, learning new stuff.. its beautiful. All of my mates wonder how am i living without a TV set, i tell them its a pleasure you would never know. I second this solution, out of experience.
      • one problem with that is that imho a sad fact is that you need to understand tv to understand society, the latter being A Good Thing.

        But if you have a tendence for excessive tv consumption then disconnecting from that medium is certainly the better option.

        btw, your sig slightly contradicts your claims ;)
        • you need to understand tv to understand society
          Pish! A few minutes a day at http://news.google.com/ [google.com] gives me more than enough info to stay on top of pop culture. I can learn about any other aspect of society from other sources.
    • I should stop slashdot. I would have *much* more free time :)
    • No TV helps a lot. Haven't had one for 3 years and loving the time it gives. Doing something physical helps more. I find that after running for an hour, I am much more able to devl into a home project. Most of all I find that to keep programming fun means to keep work out of home programming. Leaving work at the office really keeps programming fun for me. When I am working on a project at home, it's usally about something that has no relevance to work, but something that will help me be a better progr

  • Get a life (Score:2, Insightful)

    by LordNimon ( 85072 )
    You're trying to tell us that after programming for 9 hours, you want to do more? Dude, have you thought about getting a life? You need spend your after-hours time clearing your head. Just relax, make dinner, read a book, watch TV, play video games, or just hang out a friend's house. Heck, you might even consider getting some exercise.

    Or you could do what I do - spend time with my family. If you don't have one, maybe you should work on getting one?

  • The Simple Joys (Score:5, Funny)

    by cryptor3 ( 572787 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @10:05PM (#9849785) Journal
    You have to go back to the simple joys in life.
    10 PRINT "HELLO"
    20 GOTO 10

  • Way Diff (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sapen ( 733537 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @10:12PM (#9849814)
    This is really weird to read all of these posts. I love programming. I read all of the books I can on every aspect of it I can. I don't mind working 10 to 15 hour days at the office (I have to and I do restrain myself due to a recent marriage, I love my wife to!) Most of the time my wife has to beg me to come home! When I'm at home I'm working on my own projects and doing side jobs. When I am driving I'm thinking of how to properly apply a design pattern to a certain test or application. When I'm not programming I think about programming. I love writing code in all the languages I can.

    Programming has never not been fun. It has always been a challenge. Even the dull routine work, well if I ever get dull routine work I write a script to automate what I am doing, so it isn't dull routine work anywhere. If it gets dull in one language I'll pick up a different language and write the routine in that.

    Perhaps there are people who got in the wrong job for the wrong reason. If you do what you love you'll never be at work in your life. I've recently told my boss that work is like an adult playground for me, because I enjoy it so much.

    Maybe I'm a little to code crazy, but I could never imagine feeling another way. I've been at my current job about 3 years.

    So my advice is to do something you enjoy, don't settle for mediocre enjoyment. That's when you have a *job*.
    • I love my job. I love working. I love programming. All I want to do is eat, sleep and shit code. I also spend 10 - 15 hours at my job.. but not because its required(partly because it's a business startup but mainly because I enjoy it).

  • Some thoughts (Score:4, Interesting)

    by amarodeeps ( 541829 ) <dave@dubi t a b l e.com> on Friday July 30, 2004 @10:15PM (#9849824) Homepage

    I know this isn't exactly an answer, but I've found that I'm now in a position where the organization I work for is interested in using and contributing to open source projects, where I'm able to balance the more tedious work with working on code that I enjoy, where I'm finally working on larger scale projects that stretch my mind and add to my understanding of the real techniques and beauty of programming. It helps that it is a small organization that is growing fairly quickly, with good resources.

    I've also found that I'm able to work on my home computer doing more sysadmin-type stuff on my off hours--I don't always have the energy or time to work on real projects, but I feel like I get enough out of my day-to-day that I don't mind, and I get enough satisfaction out of my current project (setting up my Gentoo linux box as a personal sound studio...don't mean to be a Gentoo proselytizer, just what I'm having fun with right now).

    So I guess the moral of the story is: it's not inconceivable that you can find an organization that will let you stretch yourself in the direction you want to move--unless you have a philosophical objection to this.

  • This has come up many times (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MarkusQ ( 450076 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @10:32PM (#9849895) Journal

    This has come up many times; especially at game/graphics/"fun" companies almost everyone has the "or crud" moment when they realize that it's work now. It even has a somewhat tacky acronym (TGINAG--Thank God I'm Not A Gynecologist). Of all the solutions I've heard, only two have worked consistantly for me.

    Either:

    1. program in a very different language (e.g. Postscript or Haskel, if your days are spent in something like C); especially a language you don't already know. A lot of the early fun when programing was new to you was, after all, the fact that it was new

      or

    2. take up something other than programming that will still exercize your brain, such as physics, drawing, woodworking, model rocketry, writing, trading stocks, or...

    -- MarkusQ

  • One-trick pony? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Do you WANT to only do one thing, day and night? Few people do. When I had a non-programming job I programmed at night for fun on my own projects. Then I got a programming job and like it a lot, but I can't do the same thing day and night, so I try to do stand-up things when I get home: running, stretching, juggling, gardening, playing the saxophone. I spend a little time surfing the net, as I'm doing now, but nothing should totally dominate your life, so don't be upset that you can't be one-sided. If
  • I find it's interesting enough that I don't want to find another job, and it leaves me with enough creative energy to do programming when I get home.

    • Re:Try taking up system administration (Score:5, Interesting)

      by CoolGuySteve ( 264277 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @12:40AM (#9850439)
      I had the opposite experience.

      When I'm woking as a coder, I find that it's easy to constantly turn the problem over in my mind so that I have no problem getting up in the middle of the night and finishing something. Most of my most productive sessions have happened outside the office.

      Whereas when I had a sys admin job early on in university, there was so much running around and fighting with other people's bugs that I didn't want to look at a computer by the time I got home.

      It also completely drained me by the end of the day. For things with very few moving parts, computers fail a lot. It goes in cycles but at times, there's so much to do that your constantly running around and actively prioritizing several tasks as they come up. My admin job was probably more difficult than most however. I was supporting a mishmash of unix/linux systems and the users were very technical. I usually only had to deal with weird problems that they had given up on.

      The few Windows systems we did have for the office people required constant babying but it wasn't really high impact. I could see how it would be more relaxing. Due to the occasional virus scramble and the inability to easily ssh into a Windows machine or whip up few scripts, you get a lot of time to reflect on just badly NT5.x handles its dumb self while watching progress bars crawl across the screen.

  • Easy (Score:5, Funny)

    by gtrubetskoy ( 734033 ) * on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:01PM (#9850009)
    So, how do my fellow programming geeks balance work related projects and personal projects?

    They work on personal projects while at work.

    • Re:Easy (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dubl-u ( 51156 ) * <2523987012@pota . t o> on Saturday July 31, 2004 @06:07PM (#9854598)
      They work on personal projects while at work.

      There's some truth to this.

      Good developers like exploring new technologies and trying new things out. That's how they stay good developers. Smart companies allow for this. Some places, like Google, have formal policies saying that it's ok to spend a certain percentage of your time on personal projects. At others, it's an informal thing.

      The alternatives are to a) make your developers miserable, driving away the good, creative ones, or b) make them sneaky. Neither is such a good thing.

  • Hmm (Score:2)

    by 0x0d0a ( 568518 )
    A) Why are you writing code nine hours a day? Is it worth the (presumably significant) additional pay that you're getting working longer than 9 to 5 hours -- at most (with lunch factored in) 7.5 hours?

    B) I actually have trouble writing code if I don't have anything happening at all -- I need to get into a "work mood". So it's not all completely bad.
    • > Why are you writing code nine hours a day?

      You mean you actually have an option not to?

      > Is it worth the (presumably significant) additional
      > pay that you're getting working longer than 9 to 5 hours

      What additional pay? Full-time programmers get no overtime.
  • ... (which is rare) ... QUAKE!!! must play QUAKE!!! This tune will probably change when Doom III comes out, but until then a good Quake III fix solves the blues in a heartbeat.
  • I had a buddy that graduated from school about the same time that I did, and instead of doing the programming thing, he became a network administrator and did the fix-it-guy thing during the day. Then at night he played around with the pet projects.

    I'm almost getting to the point, though, where I come home and just don't want to look at a keyboard or monitor, regardless of whether it's just email & games or personal programming. Then it really doesn't matter.

    DT

  • Try different technologies (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Omega1045 ( 584264 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @12:24AM (#9850369)
    I am a C#/Windows programmer in my current job, but have taken up Linux as a serious hobby on the side. I would recommend doing something similar. Start programming your side projects in a different language or environment. If you are like me, you enjoy learning new things and this change of pace might just be the ticket.

  • Learn Something Else (Score:2, Insightful)

    by digime ( 681824 )

    I was in the same boat: love programming, got a job, program all day, personal projects weren't as fun. I decided it was my computing environment being the same old thing I see at work every day. So I downloaded Mandrake a year ago. I started shell scripting, then Tcl/Tk, read The C Programming Language (it's better with a *nix box), started learning assembly (which I've always wanted to learn to do well), and am currently enjoying learning my new favorite editor - vi.

    My advice is to make your computing ex

  • Like many posts, I recommend you find a way to alter your career path. Many many jobs out there need someone who understands programming but does not do much of it. One person mentioned management. You could consider this path: learn project management. My ideal job (because I'm such a ADHD scatter-brain) is one that has a lot of variety. My current job is close to it, too.

    I work in a lab with people who are building a system. There are scientists, engineers, business people, clients, etc. Each has needs
  • www.gamemaker.nl Granted, I'm just a QA and stuff, but I also code when I have to... anyway, QA's get computer burnout, too. So what I do is make twiddly little weird arcade games where I get immediate satisfaction & results. Hell, even on my lunch hour, I hammer out little proof of concept doodle games. Computers are toys. Play!
    • Game Maker! That's one helluva good piece. I even could make stuff with it for a university course. Fun it was! And still is. Jorma Ollila get's his share and other as fun ideas are easily ported to the virtual world's reality... at least in the bulky GM way. OllilaGame is not ready yet.

  • Become a network admin (Score:2, Insightful)

    by l0rd ( 52169 )
    I totally understand what you mean. Once you have to start using UML diagrams and have to work out other people's design the work can get.........dull. Especially when all you're doing is coding the Nth update for some dull application that you can't brag to your friends about as cool.

    My advice : Become a network administrator. This way you get get to fiddle around with networks at work & still have enough enthousiasm to code something cool at night. Also, if you pick the right job and have got your ne

  • Love your work or work part time (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Really, how much time can you spend on working on your own projects when you are already spending 40-50hrs a week on someone else's projects?

    I would say not too much more! Besides I find that at the end of the day I can continue with a stream of thought and keep pushing it through, but find it difficult to start new things.

    For me at least, I find there are 2 options:

    1. Align what you love doing and your work. This can be difficult when working on someone else's project. What you want is to get paid f

  • The first suggestion, as others have already posted, is to give it some time. When I first started developing, the last thing that I wanted to see after 9-10 hours of work was a computer. I eventually got over the "last thing I wanted to see" part even though I never got to the point of generally wanting to work on personal projects (though I did when I found a cool personal project from time to time).

    The second suggestion is to just do something different. Doing different things can open up your horizo

  • I'm sure others have already posted along these same lines, but...

    I picked up a part-time job programming last winter. I've been programming for a number of years, and thought it was what I wanted to do for a career. My experience programming professionally not only corrupted my hobby of programming, it nearly caused me to give up the trade completely. Programming in the work world is completely different than programming as a hobby. In the work world, you not only have deadlines (and no sympathetic us

  • After doing anything for 8 or 9 hours a day as a job, a lot of the fun is gone out of it. I use to program for fun, before I got a job doing it. Now, about all I enjoy doing on the computer at home is email and video games.

    On the other hand, my other hobby, woodturning, is extremely enjoyable. My wife got me a lathe for my birthday a year and a half ago, and I've really enjoyed it. Where I used to think that anything other than using the computer was boring, now I've found something really enjoya
  • After a full day of working on uni projects I had no energy left to do anything else. In the end I didn't bother working on uni projects much and almost flunked, but it was my personal projects that got me my current job, which sees me sitting here at 10:42AM on a Saturday Morning (but it's a good job, really!)
  • Hey man, after 9 hours in front of a computer, isn't sex a good alternative to programming?
    • You're assuming that geeks can get some. Maybe its me, but I cant just get some when I want it. I gotta play the game and, quite frankly, coding is a more enjoyable challenge most of the time.
  • Having trouble concentrating on those OSS projects? Feeling tired when you come home from work? Here's a solution that is helping billions of people around the world: get married! Marriage provides you with many incentives for coming home, completely forgetting about programming, and... ahem... relaxing. After a few years of this, you'll have children. Ah, the joy of children! They sure make the time fly in fun and pleasure. Who needs Java when you have little Jack, who is much nicer to come home to. In thi
  • You don't have to code yourself. You can also look through code. Pick some package of which you always wanted to know the internals. Then look at the code until you know what's happening inside.

    You don't even have to sit behind a PC if you want (just print it at work) but searching is difficult.

  • Warm Up, Cool Down (Score:2, Informative)

    by holzp ( 87423 )
    I try to start my workday and finish my workday with some personal projects. Sometimes I have had employers who encouraged working on a fun project at work, sometimes I needed to work on something 'work-related', but generally it had to be fun. I would use these projects as a warm up and a cool down from the brunt of my work programming. I found that it would get my head into 'programming space' with something enjoyable, and at the end of the day, let me leave thinking about my fun work and not the hard slo

  • Mushrooms (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jupiter909 ( 786596 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @11:38AM (#9852496)
    Try magic mushrooms, that will get you in a creative mood again. See the world from a differnt point of view but keeping focus. You'll find that the worlds best minds see things from a 'mushroom' type point of view.

  • same thing... (Score:2, Informative)

    by Lord Dreamshaper ( 696630 )
    in my case, as well as many of my of my fellow English Lit majors, we were the kids who HAD to read 24/7...until courses required us to cram Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Joyce, etc. like they were forgettable movies-of-the-week and many of us couldn't even stand to read mindless summertime fiction anymore...the hard choice may be deciding do you want to enjoy coding because it puts food on your table or do you want to enjoy it because it remained a hobby...myself and many of my peers chose to find new careers rath

  • Maybe this isn't what you want to hear... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Moeses ( 19324 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @03:05PM (#9853605)
    I've found myself in a similar situation. I had tons of pet projects when I was in school, even when I co-op'd, but as my development jobs got more intense and difficult I didn't have the same urge to go do more of the same at home. What I found works for me and still scratches the somewhat the same itch is to read GOOD computer books, the classics in the field. This excersizes your brain in a slightly different way, and will give you food for thought as you reflect on all the development you've been doing during the day.

    I'll leave you with this thought. While some of the greatest hackers spend nearly all of their time hacking, this might not be the path that leads you to be the best hacker you can be. Myself (not the greatest hacker in the world, but I'm no slouch), I find that I program better when I've come back refreshed from other activities, such as playing musical instruments, excersizing, reading a book about a whole new field, etc.

    Just some thoughts, don't feel guilty about not programming all the time, give yourself some space from it so you can enjoy it!

  • I am not sure what it is that I am supposed to be doing at work.

    All day I read Slashdot and wish I had time for my personal projects.

    Seriously, though, I have a desire to see our company adopt real development processes. Direct attack didn't work. So I took the project assigned to me and completed it using new tools and techniques. Therefore it is fun.
  • I went through the same thing you're going through. What finally did it for me was scheduling a specific time during the week where I work on code at home. I take it easy at work that/those day(s) and make sure my family is prepared. During the other parts of the week when I'm at work and not programming, like when I'm in a meeting, I'll put some thought into what I want to accomplish on my programming day(s). Because I have a family I can't use the same time every week, but I always try to schedule a

  • some thoughts (Score:3, Insightful)

    by muyuubyou ( 621373 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @06:52PM (#9854846)
    First thing you should consider is working less hours. Yes that may not be easy (switching jobs, or quit working overtime - they don't appreciate it anyway), but after 9 hours in front of a computer, going back home to sit again in front of another computer isn't good for your health. You should consider exercise instead, so you would get healthier and that will give you longer concentration capabilities and attention span, then dedicate your projects some hours in the weekend.

    You must also sleep well, and quit caffeine completely. From your nick I infer you're into caffeine and that simply shortens your productive hours.

    In short: try to keep fit and quit consuming caffeine. 12 hours a day in front of your computer are bad for you. Extra weight and back problems affect your programming performance negatively. Trust me.

  • Do something different (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Salamander ( 33735 ) <jeff AT pl DOT atyp DOT us> on Saturday July 31, 2004 @11:55PM (#9856034) Homepage Journal

    The simple answer is in the subject line. If you do something that's too much like work, it will seem like work. Even if what you do is explore ideas that occurred to you in the context of work (e.g. infrastructures/algorithms that were deferred until a future release) it's probably going to seem like work. What you need to do is something completely different. For example, my work involves the confluence of kernel programming, distributed systems, and storage. The important parts are all written in C/C++. So what do I do on my own time? I hack on the code that runs my website (in PHP) or a backup/synchronization tool (in Python) or play around with automatic code rewriting (Python again, though it's manipulating C parse trees). Sometimes there's a bit of overlap, but for the most part the programming I do on my own time has a completely different "flavor" than what I do at work. That, plus a recognition that my personal projects will need to be suspended and resumed as higher priorities (work, family life, etc.) intervene, helps keep me happy with programming both at work and at home.

  • After work, I spend my time on non-computer hobbies and other things I enjoy (skiing, mountain biking, off-roading, movies, music,home theather, cars, friends, dating, travel, etc). It's important to have a life outside of the biz, IMHO. I do read some each week and experiment with personal programming projects to stay current. Currently, I do design/architecture and some Java coding at work (50-60 hr work weeks) in a corporate setting. I'm not sure what I'm going to do long-term in the industry--I've be
  • Beating the same drum as the rest, but it's pretty simple: don't program full-time unless you have to.

    When you work two, three days a week you still have plenty of time left for your own projects, and it's not like you have 4 mouths to feed. More importantly than just having more time, you also keep the fun in programming. After 5 days of hacking, you're not likely to do any in your two days off. After 3 days of hacking, you have both time to relax and to ponder about your own projects. Not to mention dou

    • The only warning that I would add is that even if you don't have four mouths to feed, you soon will. So, a "bachelor" strategy is only a defensive position at best. You need to reach a comfort level with your job eventually, if not right now.

      I do agree that keeping your work projects very seperate from your personal projects is a good strategy. It not only avoids burn-out, but avoids nasty legal issues as well - especially if you work on fs/os projects.
  • I am still working hard on an open source project ( CEP [sourceforge.net]) that is unrelated to my 9-5 programming. A lot of purely personal stuff doesn't get done, but I stay motivated to work on CEP.

    The problem for me is that if I touch a computer at home, my wife sees it as m work. So she can be lounging on the couch watching TV, but if I lounge on the couch and surf the web (or even pay bills online) she assumes I am working at home.

    To her defense, I used to have a shitty job that I did have to do work at home. T

  • Teach (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nonmaskable ( 452595 ) on Sunday August 01, 2004 @10:30PM (#9860804)
    Teach a kid or two to program. Especially a disadvantaged kid. There are a lot of 10-15 year olds without anything good going on in their lives who need something to grab onto.
  • Pushed for part time. Bosses didn't go fo it. Ended up quitting. Now I run a landscaping business and my projects rock. You have a limited amount of programming juice. Don't spend it chasing dollars.

  • code the fun in (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    When you hit the real world of programming jobs, you'll spend LOTS of time reading other people's code. Remarks and comments are where you can talk to those who will read that code after you. Any code I write that's more than 10 lines long MUST make others at least crack a smile; I generally go for a full LOL. Variable names are a prime target - fill a variable named phlegm, format it into one named goober with a call to cough(), then spit it out to the printer. With proper names you can write a line like:
  • I never feel like programming in the evening anymore, either. I do a lot of biking now (lost 35 pounds), and I'm learning French.

  • From my experience... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cgreuter ( 82182 ) on Tuesday August 03, 2004 @04:50PM (#9871836)

    I noticed this too and I adapted. I've been writing code for a living and for fun for a while now.

    Actually, I still enjoy doing the stuff I get paid for, so I guess I'm ahead in the game.

    My thoughts:

    1. You will be less productive on your hobby projects. Get used to it. It's going to take you a lot longer to get anything done.
    2. If you don't feel like doing it, don't. This is supposed to be for fun and if it's not fun, it's not worth doing. Or at least, it's not worth doing now. You can always put it down and go play Doom. That being said, it is worthwhile from a psychological point of view to finish your projects. Just remember, though, that you don't have a deadline.
    3. Do stuff that's wildly different from what you normally do at work. I, for example, do C and assembly stuff at work so at home, I do web stuff in Smalltalk. This is also good advice from a career management point of view. Learning new skills makes you more employable. Learn Lisp, Smalltalk, functional programming, Prolog, web applications, machine language, databases and anything else in the field that seems even remotely interesting.
    4. Consider giving up TV. If you absolutely must see certain shows, tape them and watch them on a day when you feel too tired to do anything useful. Not only do you save your useful hours that way but you also get to skip commercials, saving you some twenty minutes per hour of TV. (DVD box sets are also good for that.) Whatever you do, don't just turn on the tube and channel-surf until you find something tolerable. That's the time sink.
    5. As a longer-term strategy, plan to work for someone who doesn't require you to spend nine hours a day on the job. The normal work day should be eight hours, including breaks and lunch. A wise employer knows that extra-long hours leads to dimishing returns very quickly.

    Good luck.

  • I'm a climber but I wouldn't want to become a mountain guide and take dummies up peaks.
    Same thing, you (probably) like to have sex but you wouldn't enjoy it for long if you had to do it for money, heh ?

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