What people do outside of 'business hours' really is no business of their employer. The angle is 'I would not interview them', not 'I would not hire them'.<p>The difference is subtle, but the title suggests that it is the one whereas actually it is the other.<p>Think about it, if you actually did what the title says then you'd be open to legal action almost immediately.<p>Imagine an employer that would not hire a bookkeeper because they're not busy with bookkeeping in their free time.<p>I understand what the author is trying to say but the title is not really appropriate, the author has filtered out such applicants before the interview phase, so he does not hire them as a consequence of that.
I met someone who finished business school and applied for lots of jobs in the financial sector, but was rather frustrated after six months and several interviews but no job offer. (This was before the financial crisis.)<p>She complained that the interviewers were asking stupid and irrelevant questions, along the lines of "what is the current stock price for company X?"<p>When she told them she had been away on vacation in France they asked her to describe the French stock market instead. (She: "How am I supposed to know, I was on holiday!")<p>Programming is apparently not the only field where "interest beyond 9-5" is a job requirement...<p>Or more precisely: There are plenty of jobs in both programming and finance where 9-5 interest is enough, but in my experience the jobs that are considered "good" tend to ask more than that.
So basically if a good programmer is spending his time with family and kids or doing something other than programming in his non-work time, then you will not hire him?<p>Programming outside business hours is great way to learn new skills and try out things that will never come as part of your day job. For example, my day job would never include any mobile app development. So I do it as a side project. In fact lot of people have developed lot of cool projects this way (outside work).<p>However saying this is the only way to tell a programmer is good is taking it too far. Like Jacquesm mentions people might have other interesting things to do or on the other hand people can suck equally bad in their 'other' projects too :)
As an employer I would want good (or "great", but I prefer the term good) programmers. I don't really care why they are good. Maybe they are good because they program 24/7 - okay. Maybe they do not use a computer outside of the office, but are still good programmers - okay.<p>Really, why should I care? This all sounds more like "I want people who are like me" than "I want good programmers as employees".
This has been discussed in many places but ok, here goes my take. I hardly, ever, ever program at home unless it is something I can make money of. I like programming as much as the next guy, but between my family and my hobbies (which are many), I see programming for 9-5.<p>Working 8 hours a day and being good at it doesn't qualify as passionate? What do you want? 10? 16? 22 hours a day?<p>You want people that are passionate and want to learn? Give them chances to do so while on the job. Let them use Ruby on Rails, or Erlang on the next project. Don't expect them to do it at home for free so you them reap the rewards.<p>If you don't want to hire me, fine, heck you can even not hiring me because I'm bald and you don't like bald people, but this "Has to program at home/Has to contribute to Open Source" crap is nothing more than that, crap!
Thats nice. I wouldn't want to work with someone who did nothing but program, use computers, 24/7. There is this thing called life, I hear its pretty interesting.
I want to say something that will no doubt be wildly unpopular.<p>What are the chances that the author uses programming as a method of escape? The reason I say this -- he discusses his social anxiety at the bottom. Makes me think instead of interacting with new and random people, he would rather be in his own thoughts (either because it is less painful or there simply isn't an interest in new people).<p>Many people, even several that I work with, do not program much outside of the job. I would virtually always rather be out at an event or by the pool or doing just about -anything- other than be on my computer after my work day is finished. Important stuff comes through my phone and I'll address it if necessary, but I am not dying to get right back on the computer when I get home.<p>I should note however, that my job is transitioning out of developer and into a more outwardly facing role. I've been developing for several years and I've just grown tired of it. I get to solve new problems now.
In my mind, programming outside of business hours is a part of ongoing education. Often, you learn a lot programming on your own time even if it is related to a work project. Extending a new function or exploring how something could work better with a new technique after 5pm is one of the easiest and best ways to pepper in some regular education.<p>Sometimes however, a programmer who isn't deeply interested in technology can be a valuable addition to the team. If you have a lot of code that needs to be transitioned, complicated logs that need imported, regular "do this, then" work or other labor that a deeply motivated programmer would find tedious, a different style of programmer may find this work comfortable and easy.
For the first 3 years that I was a professional programmer, I didn't code at all at home. Previously, I had coded as a hobby and it was my skills from that that I was hired on. But suddenly going from 2 hours of programming a day to 8 was too much.<p>Around the 3 year mark, something changed. I suddenly wasn't doing enough programming at work and started playing around at home.<p>Now recently (the 5 year mark is quickly approaching) I have started to hunger for it even more, and have started watching less TV and playing fewer video games in favor of doing more fun coding at home and researching new ideas/languages/etc.<p>I think if the developer has years of experience and doesn't code at home, he doesn't have the fever needed to become better on his own time.<p>While I don't think that should immediately disqualify someone, I think it should be part of the hiring decision.
am I the only one bothered by the second formula?
¬(¬MY_PEEPS ⇒ ¬SKILLZ) ∧ ¬(¬SKILLZ ⇒ ¬SOFTWARE)<p>at first sight it could be quite more simple as<p>¬(SKILLZ ⇒ MY_PEEPS ∨ SOFTWARE ⇒ SKILLZ)<p>(contrapposition, de morgan)
Any employer worth working for has learning and development programs. At big companies, there's probably dozens of people managing training programs. At small companies, there are tons of opportunities to organize interest groups or show and tell. I know firms with lots of licensed employees (accounting, insurance, and education come to mind) generally have no problem granting their employees time to keep current on their continuing education. So what's the problem with technology? Why can't we act as humanely as other professions?
The idea that if you don't program outside of work you're not a good programmer is just silly. I can understand that you might regard with some suspicion the abilities of someone who has never in their entire life written code outside of work. But, the idea that you must always continue to do so even when you have a day job programming is utter nonsense.<p>Programming isn't my weekend hobby anymore. Why should it be? I get to do it every day at work and get paid for it now. That was the point of making it my career. It was something I already enjoyed doing and was good at that I could also make a living by doing. Am I automatically less passionate about it because I'm doing it for profit now? Of course not. I use my free time to do all of the other things that I enjoy doing. It's ok to have more than one passion. It won't harm your programming ability for you to program during the day and paint or write music in your spare time. On the contrary, you are more likely to show up for work each day refreshed and enthused about what you are doing precisely because you are doing other satisfying things after work.
Very interesting that someone really uses his social network like that. I like to keep up with professionals via their blogs and twitter. As a student (final year) I find it helps me learn what's happening in the tech world from a better (for me) perspective than a purely news oriented site. I usually learn something which helps.
I have actually heard the opposite during hiring. Basically because of the "no assholes" rule. If someone doesn't have interests other than work/programming, there's a good chance they fail that test.