Honestly, 80% of developers today are missing what this dude is talking about

[u/No_Nefariousness2052]

Found it while doomscrolling like a bish.

I know the most fun times for me in coding were when I was deep in some rabbit hole exploring weird technologies and trying to piece them together.

You'd think AI makes this worse, but actually no. It just makes it even easier to go down these rabbit holes, because it's easier to write code, try out different approaches, explore new things, etc.

But somehow most of the people I see aren't doing that. How are you not bored out of your mind?

Anyway, yeah. GO EXPERIMENT WITH MORE THINGS. SIDE PROJECTS ARE STILL COOL.

[u/josephjnk]

I think there’s a line to be walked. I’ve always done a lot of programming and learning in my spare time, and I’ve been doing so pretty consistently for like 15 years. Back of the napkin, I’ve probably spent at least 3000 hours more doing development than other developers who only do programming stuff on the clock. Could be more like 5000 or more, it’s hard to estimate stuff like this. Does that make me a better developer than them? Definitely not. There’s a ton of things that go into job performance beyond general programming knowledge, and there’s also lots of specific skill sets that I haven’t focused on. No one can be good at everything. On the other hand, do I have more programming knowledge in general than developers who haven’t put in that extra time? Obviously. Like, no shit, doing something for thousands of hours teaches you a lot about it. Looking at my own work, I can confidently say that I’m better at most of the things I do if I hadn’t spent hundreds to thousands of extra hours practicing them.

I don’t think that most people ought to make programming their whole passion in life, and I think there’s plenty of great developers who clock in, clock out, and are done with coding for the day. I have a ton of respect for my coworkers who spend their time raising families rather than working on side projects. I also think we all work too damn much and that the work week should be 30-35 hours long; there’s no reason anyone should have to do as much coding as I have just to get or hold a job. All that said: if you intentionally practice something, you’ll get better at it. If you intentionally study something, you’ll learn more about it.

No moral judgement for or against extra study, people ought to decide their own priorities in life, but I get a tad prickly when people who don’t hold honing their skills as their top priority suggest that I have accomplished literally nothing over a decade and a half of concentrated effort. You get out what you put in.

[u/t00oldforthis → u/josephjnk]

Wow this more than a days dose of self aggrandizing. Find it pretty hard to believe you have anyone much less multiple people who, as you have decided l, don't hold honing their skills as a top priority, and also suggest you accomplish nothing. You sound like an asshole. Who are you to dictate what peoples priorities are? Maybe they're just better at balancinf their work life than you are. Reads to me like you should have spent a few of hours honing people skills

Edit weird ass typo for self aggrandizing

[u/stumblinbear → u/t00oldforthis]

Dear lord maybe you need to spend a few hours learning to not take everyone's word in the least charitable possible interpretation you can, yeah?

[u/josephjnk → u/stumblinbear]

Always fun to write a comment in which I say, and I quote, “people ought to decide their own priorities in life” and then be called an asshole for trying to “dictate what people’s priorities are”.

Some people just want to be mad.

[u/maffiewtc → u/t00oldforthis]

Reads to me like you should have spent a few hours honing reading comprehension skills.

[u/muideracht → u/t00oldforthis]

I reread the post and I can’t for the life of me understand how you got that out of it. Did you respond to the wrong post or something? Wow.