Paul's Time Sink

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software engineer or just crazy

Paul Westbrook | 21 July, 2006 23:34

Some times I wonder about myself. When ever work is very busy, and I get home late, I always end up working on side projects until late into the night. And these projects have nothing to do with my day job, but are just things that interest me.

I am not sure why I do them. Obviously these are things that interest me, I just don't know why I spend the majority of my time on them while things are busy at work. Maybe, when work is busy, these software projects help my mind settle. Or maybe I am a little crazy

Crazy [Reply]

I can confirm this. You are a little crazy. ;)

No really, lots of us do this, right? Maybe we like the ability to engineer in a blue sky kind of way. Work is all about business-imposed trade-offs. You have to ship by a certain date. Feature X will take too long to build and not make enough money to make it worthwhile.

I think this is actually a pretty good mark of a good engineer. People who spend their spare time doing stuff like this end up knowing about more technologies over time. So maybe our companies should pay us for this kind of work! ;)

-t

tmk | 22/07/2006, 10:56

You are definitely crazy [Reply]

But that has nothing to do with your nocturnal habits. And every time I talk to you, you don't have a side project ;-). However, it seems almost every software engineer I know has some non-work related (side) project they are working on. I have always equated this to the fact that programming is more of an art than a science. Writer's have a saying, they _have_ to write. And I find being a code monkey is much the same way (for most of us anyway).

Johnathon | 23/07/2006, 22:37

Not crazy, just insane like the rest of us [Reply]

I think most of us have our side projects, whether we work in engineering disciplines or in others. I spend all day tech writing...then come home and write a crapload more.

Working makes us happy. Efficiency at our jobs is something we can control, even when the rest of our lives are chaos.

The Zero Boss | 25/07/2006, 10:13

My kind of crazy [Reply]

I love that you are ever passionate about what you do. How many people have their J-O-B in what they love such that after a HARD day.. they go home and create something out of the joy of it? It's a blessing... if maybe a curse?

I'd still like you to come to bed though! *wink* ok, 'nuff naggin'