I'm curious how many people on here code for a living as a passion and love doing it every single day or is bored of it but do it just for work to pay the bills and support the ones they love?
Coding? There's nothing like being in the zone, nothing at all. Long periods of intricate code-weaving, punctuated by the thrill of neurons locking into place when you solve a problem.<p>But then you get noticed, acquire new responsibilities, start managing things, running meetings, get a budget, negotiate contracts, handle staffing... and the first thing you know you have an eight-to-five job.
Should be a passion, when a developer go into "get by to pay the bills" mode he/she should get restructured to a new project or whatever else can spark their passion again.<p>Me? Passion. I work from 7 to 15 and code on hobby projects / play with new languages/frameworks almost daily after that.