For me, coding at work and coding at home have always been different. When I started my job at Ephibian, I learned a lot about web and database programming, but at home, my personal site never really improved, or changed much at all. My take on it is that when I get home from work, I don’t really feel like doing anything involving web programming or database programming because I’ve been doing that all day.
I’m reminded of something an old friend said back when I knew him in high school. He was very bright when it came to anything having to do with computers. I asked him what profession he was planning on getting into after graduation, and he said he was interested in becoming a doctor. I asked him why not do something like CS, and he claimed that computers were for fun and enjoyment…he didn’t want to ever have computer related stuff turn into work. At the time, I thought he was kind of crazy, now I understand what he meant by that comment.
Now, I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy programming. Quite the contrary actually…I love to program in my spare time even though I do it all day at work. But recently I’ve been considering finding a job doing Macintosh-related development after my wife, Katrina, and I move next year. Ever since starting XRG development, I’ve really enjoyed developing for the Mac platform. Objective C is a nice language and Cocoa makes things easy to do. However, I don’t want to give up my hobby of developing Mac freeware/shareware, and I’m concerned if I get a job developing at a Mac software company, I will no longer have the desire to continue developing personal projects such as XRG.
For other developers out there, what do you think? Are there types of coding that you love doing so much that even though you code at work, you still have no problem coming home and coding something in a similar language or for a similar platform?