I believe that you touched a number of interesting points here, from external perspective (potential employers, teammates, etc) to internal one (oneself).
I also find very interesting the fact that you characterized Senior as against doing so, and Juniors as in favour. I consider myself senior, or close to (~10 years in gamedev, ~2-3 in other fields) and I'll strongly lean on the "don't, because burn out". Been there, done that; I'll come back on that later.
I was also a junior who was coding his passion projects at night and weekends, while working in games. I enjoyed it, and I learned from that. So there is some positive in there.
But ultimately, it all boils down to the cost behind all this. Because there is nothing free, and that time passed coding was not used to do other things. The cost was that I stopped many other hobbies. The cost was that I was not letting my brain rest. The cost was that I slowly burning out, all of that justified by the passion, and the fact that I enjoy coding very much.
On top of that, there will always be someone out there with more fuel, more time, or what will seem to have a better output; and inevitably, this can become an uphill battle: comparisons creates frustration, and dissatisfaction will then lead to the dreaded burn out.
There is also a lot of pressure regarding coding on your free time. As you mentioned, there's the "if you don't breath code, you're not really invested", and there's the pressure we put on ourselves by seeing all the cool stuff others are pulling off. That whole "you're not invested" thing is bullshit, to put it bluntly. Should one be judged at work by what they do 24/7, or by what they do at work?
Ultimately, the whole thing can be viewed as some sort of "rite of passage". And retrospectively, it is really a terrible rite of passage :D
I have gradually recovered from my own burn out; Being in sabbatical, and going through some personal stuff, I realized that my hobbies (as in "my free time") and my job could overlap, but should not be a full circle. I am even currently making that overlap as small as possible. And it feels way better.
So, does one should code on their free time? Sure, why not. But that should not become the only thing. And that is the difficult thing to balance.
Because the brain needs to rest, and it can only rest if we give it the possibility to do so.
(PS: I wanted also to point out that I've been reading Dev.to for something like 2 years, and never felt the need to write before this post, because it really hits close to home. I hope this answer helps)
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I believe that you touched a number of interesting points here, from external perspective (potential employers, teammates, etc) to internal one (oneself).
I also find very interesting the fact that you characterized Senior as against doing so, and Juniors as in favour. I consider myself senior, or close to (~10 years in gamedev, ~2-3 in other fields) and I'll strongly lean on the "don't, because burn out". Been there, done that; I'll come back on that later.
I was also a junior who was coding his passion projects at night and weekends, while working in games. I enjoyed it, and I learned from that. So there is some positive in there.
But ultimately, it all boils down to the cost behind all this. Because there is nothing free, and that time passed coding was not used to do other things. The cost was that I stopped many other hobbies. The cost was that I was not letting my brain rest. The cost was that I slowly burning out, all of that justified by the passion, and the fact that I enjoy coding very much.
On top of that, there will always be someone out there with more fuel, more time, or what will seem to have a better output; and inevitably, this can become an uphill battle: comparisons creates frustration, and dissatisfaction will then lead to the dreaded burn out.
There is also a lot of pressure regarding coding on your free time. As you mentioned, there's the "if you don't breath code, you're not really invested", and there's the pressure we put on ourselves by seeing all the cool stuff others are pulling off. That whole "you're not invested" thing is bullshit, to put it bluntly. Should one be judged at work by what they do 24/7, or by what they do at work?
Ultimately, the whole thing can be viewed as some sort of "rite of passage". And retrospectively, it is really a terrible rite of passage :D
I have gradually recovered from my own burn out; Being in sabbatical, and going through some personal stuff, I realized that my hobbies (as in "my free time") and my job could overlap, but should not be a full circle. I am even currently making that overlap as small as possible. And it feels way better.
So, does one should code on their free time? Sure, why not. But that should not become the only thing. And that is the difficult thing to balance.
Because the brain needs to rest, and it can only rest if we give it the possibility to do so.
(PS: I wanted also to point out that I've been reading Dev.to for something like 2 years, and never felt the need to write before this post, because it really hits close to home. I hope this answer helps)