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Do you code on weekends?

Madza on May 08, 2021

Many devs strictly believe that resting and family time is equally important as work, leaving weekends code-free: Do you code on weekends? If so...
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anujpancholi profile image
Anuj Pancholi

Of course. I think coding has transcended from being just a job to being a way of life. It's just far too competitive and there's far too much to learn and know, so you'd be losing your edge in the job market if you don't code in your free time. It's an uncomfortable reality.

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jackmellis profile image
Jack

If you're writing code because you feel pressured I think that could lead to quite an unhealthy situation mentally. Code for work, code for fun, just don't code without passion...

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cariehl profile image
Cooper Riehl

This is very important, and a great comment.

We shouldn't code outside of work just to stay competitive; that very quickly leads to burnout and extra stress. I only code outside of work when I feel like it, not because I feel like I "have to".

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anujpancholi profile image
Anuj Pancholi

Do you truly believe everyone who codes professionally is passionate about coding? I think that's a spurious claim. And coding outside of work just to stay competitive is how most people prepare for coding interviews.

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jackmellis profile image
Jack

Im sure they exist but I haven't personally worked with anyone who got into coding because they just needed some sort of job.

Most of us love what we do every day, and we are in a privileged position as I don't think there are many jobs out there where you get to do what you love for good money.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes I have to slog for an upcoming interview or something. But outside of those instances, when I'm writing code in my free time and hating it, I feel like something was wrong and usually means I need to take a break for a bit.

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cariehl profile image
Cooper Riehl

@anujpancholi You are right, I was being idealistic. Not everybody has the luxury to only code outside of work when they choose to.

I would still caution those people to be mindful of their mental health when practicing for interviews and such. If someone doesn't enjoy coding, but still spends a large amount of free time doing it, they are even more prone to excess stress. Spending work hours and free hours on things we don't enjoy will make us miserable in the long run, and my hope for those people is that they're able to find a career where they are not only effective, but also happy.

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jackmellis profile image
Jack

On reflection of my last comment I may have also have been a bit naive so I apologise. My point was really that we should be conscious of things that affect our mental wellbeing.

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anujpancholi profile image
Anuj Pancholi

We seem to have wildly different experiences. I know maybe 2 people who are truly passionate. It's just about making a half-decent career for everyone else. Anyway, I'm glad you've found a passion in your career as a coder.

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marvinkweyu profile image
Marvin

Put it so nicely

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marvinkweyu profile image
Marvin

@cariehl You are so right about developers and their mental health. We should just take menta health as important if not more important than physical health.

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Kinanee Samson

I don't agree with this. Our lives revolve around more than just giving instructions to computers, we have family, friends and other things we need to attend to. You should try to pick some time when you rest, without doing anything related to coding.

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anujpancholi profile image
Anuj Pancholi

As much as I (or anyone) would love to believe this, free time for anything unrelated to coding has become a luxury that's becoming harder by the day for professional software engineers to obtain.

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kalashin1 profile image
Kinanee Samson

True.. But i place a lot of value on free time.. I try as much as possible to squeeze as much free time as possible

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miftau profile image
Miftau

One should code every moment

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Daniel Diaz

It is not that healthy. Believe me :)

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marvinkweyu profile image
Marvin

@miftau You need to go out. The sacrifice of your wellbeing is not worth it

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Ben Calder

It's an uncomfortable reality perhaps; but it's something all developers should be pushing against. I do code outside work to satisfy personal interests. This can be relevant to what I do at work; but when i need to do research specific to a work task I log that as work time.

It's in your employer's interests to support your personal development and they should provide resources to enable this rather than exploiting your passion and enthusiasm. This is standard practice in many industries; so why not web-dev also?

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madza profile image
Madza • Edited

It's about passion, persistence, and how bad do you want it 🎯🚀

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Abhishek Tripathi • Edited

I think "coding" is an incorrect way to define a developer. I don't think "coding" is something a seasoned developer would look after for. The correct word is "development". It involves researching the subject and learning about it, and occasionally, translate it into code. I think "learning" is the way of life of a developer which never ceases to stop. We "developers" continue to learn and improve ourselves and it does require effort outside of office hours as well because it is not just what we are paid for but a pursuit of knowledge and improvement.

Edit: rephrased with an appropriate opening statement to clarify the intent.

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Christopher Miles • Edited

The terms "coder" and "coding" are a bit anachronistic, I don't think many people have those kinds of roles anymore. When I first entered the field, coders would take pretty detailed psuedo-code and then implement it, often in COBOL or RPG. Today, even junior level people tend to have more freedom of movement, often they start out on fixing bugs.

Personally, I think if "coder" being another word for "developer". 😉

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xlpacman805 profile image
Johnny Meza

This^

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zer0 profile image
zer0 • Edited

Well now we don’t know what this is pointing to /s

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Richard Ikin

'Developer', or 'Software Engineer' ?

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Junxiao Shi

Since the pandemic began, there's no more difference between weekdays and weekends.
Other than my monthly rental car Geocaching trip, the rest is fair game.

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madza profile image
Madza

Since the pandemic began, there's no more difference between weekdays and weekends.

This is well put 😉😀😀

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cariehl profile image
Cooper Riehl

I love coding on weekends, or more generally, coding outside of work. I chose programming as a profession because I just love writing code, and having it as a profession hasn't stopped me from enjoying it as a hobby.

I never force myself to work on projects outside of work hours, but when I have the inspiration/motivation to work on my personal projects, I have no problem doing so. It's a great way to learn new skills, and improve my existing ones, so it does pay itself off. But I don't code on weekends to stay competitive, I do it because I genuinely enjoy it!

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Daniel Ziltener

Yes, I sometimes code on the weekends when I have time. I have a bunch of hobby projects like a little game, a chicken scheme wrapper for Qt, and so on. It also does feel very different to what I do at work; coding in my free time feels more like a puzzle game than actual programming to me.

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Andrei Dascalu

Absolutely. In weekends I code after kids go to sleep, usually time is split between spending time with my wife, watching something but there's always room for a couple of hours of coding, usually towards some OSS

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Andrew Baisden

Coding is work and a hobby so yes I code on weekends.

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peter279k

Yes. I'm coding on weekend. And contribute my favorite open source projects on GitHub or write some code on CoreWars.

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madza profile image
Madza • Edited

I remember doing quite a lot of challenges in CodeWars back in the day, I think I had like 500+ completed... 😀😀

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peter279k

Me too. I write some code on CodeWars and also complete many challenges :)...

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madza profile image
Madza

hahah, turns out I was 3kyu, too 😀😀 just checked mine 😉

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Joker2000

Almost never. Mental health is far more important. If you spend your working life in front of a computer it's so important to get a change of scenery and completely switch off.

Coding is one of my passions and it's not always easy to tell myself to stop but there's more to life than just one passion.

Time to experience the world we all share.

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geekie profile image
Geekie

What is a weekend? Geeks have none!

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robvirtuoso • Edited

In these unprecedented times, weekends don't feel any different from any other day of the week. You can do coding/development stuff on a weekend, and so can you spend some family time on a regular weekday, especially if you're one of us who are able to work from home anyway.

Development work doesn't have to take over your entire life, I'm just saying that during this pandemic, it doesn't matter much which day of the week you spend time coding.

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Riri

If I'm not too tired from work, I usually code on the weekends to work on personal projects and to tinker around with new stuff I've learned over the week. But there are times when I just want to curl up in bed and read a book or watch a movie 😅

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Darren Harding

Rarely. Sometimes I may have a little personal project I'd like to work on but for the most part I'm a firm believer in a work / home life balance. I've got other things, kids, places to go etc. I spend all day in front of a computer, I'm damned if I going to spend my spare time doing exactly the same thing!
For example if you're an Olympic runner and train all the time, when you get a day off you're not going to go running! ;)

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Ian Pride

That's when I get the most time to code; during the week I have to spend more time taking care of my home and family (my kids are still in virtual learning and I help them most of the day) and then and I'll code in the evening, but I get a little more "me" time on the weekend. Right now I'm building the base code of a suite of cli tools (a utils package) for use with Linux escape sequencing in C++; started as a 16+ mil color rgb tool, but the class system I've built is capable of manipulating any type of sequence so I'm expanding it.

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raguay profile image
Richard Guay

No, no, no…”code-free” isn’t healthier at all. It takes away my paycheck 🤡.

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madza profile image
Madza

Hahah, yeah lack of a better term 😂😂

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Luca

I've always tried to avoid that, as there are many other things to do in our life (friends, family, traveling, music....) besides coding. Still the urge was high, so I decided to stop working on fridays (freelance forever😎, Yes u can too !) and now, with my 3 days weekend, I've got a whole free day to study, code or whatever, without having to put my life aside.
Happy coding
Happy notcoding
Do whatever makes you feel good!

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gleaming_cube profile image
Darren Harding

^^ This

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Amador Criado

Absolutely, and not only during the weekends... I code during holidays as well... 😀

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Manav Misra

Nice. It's important to rest our 🧠s though.
But, to avoid burnout with all of that coding, have our own personal things rather than 'work coding' is good. 👩🏾‍💻

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Fahmi Noor Fiqri

Yes! I do code on weekends but mostly for fun, like a self project and stuff, not because of JIRA tickets haha

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Mario Kober

I try to have off-display time a much as possible. There are so many things to do and new passions to find. Doing the same thing over and over is a waste of our limited lifetime.

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Johnny Meza

Yeah more often than not I'm coding on the weekends, even if it's just for 2 hours. There's usually something I want to learn so that's when I learn it.

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Siddharth

I code for a hobby, So I code daily. I ❤️ coding!

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

I enjoy weekend coding but need to find a new lifestyle around it all. It’s not good for me longterm. I need to ensure my weekends let me unwind.

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sid

I go to school, so i can only code on weekends

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David Dal Busco

Yes but, I am getting better at time off 😉

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Valeria

I code for fun and to try out experimental tech. However I have a restriction that it cannot be work-related nor forced.
I have a CMS project I'm working for some time now. Currently I'm rewriting it's UI on web components from Preact to sate my refactoring hunger :-)

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csgeek

I do but mainly for side projects and honestly it helps me relax. I code on projects I want to work on. That's not always the case at work.

Technology is my happy place. I have other hobbies of course but coding is one of them. The reason I got into tech is because I enjoy it in the first place.

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Leon

Yep. Coding is my hobby, so I always code at weekend, but I working on my side project or type some algorithm, I don't like work on weekend.

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Richard Ikin

I've gotten to a point when it's more like "when am I not coding"...
Which is bad.

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Daniel Diaz

Yes.

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Oliver • Edited

Yes but I don't work as a developer. I build stuff because I want to.

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freakjacker profile image
freak-jacker

Of course Not. I just want sleep in weekends or do some others

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freak-jacker

It's boring to write code all the time. get out and do something new

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Jonathan Boudreau

I code on the side but just for fun. I've been messing around with a k3s cluster, might spin up a valheim server on it once I get everything I want working.

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Yosra

I mostly code on weekends because I'm a fulltime student

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natelindev profile image
Nathaniel

I code all day every day

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miracool profile image
Makanju Oluwafemi

Yeah while not, when you have the motivation trust me most of your thought will revolve around solving a programmatic problems

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oniichan profile image
yoquiale

I don't usually code in my free time or weekends, but when I do it's because I'm bored.

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Kinanee Samson

Saturdays are just basically for resting, i don't do any amount of coding on Saturday but i code on Sundays

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Louis Low

Yes, I am. Not doing it for my job. I just love to build side projects as a hobby. Even just a few lines of code good enough to fulfil my addiction. I code for a hobby.

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Stephanie Handsteiner

Yes, I do code on the weekends, aside from work code is also still a hobby. That is, if I'm feeling like it, I do take entire weekends off, if not, to recharge my brain.

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Jasterix

I'd like to code every day, but after sitting at a desk all week, I generally avoid my desk on weekends. At least for now.

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Richard Guay

Of course. That is when I can work on side projects the most (comparatively).

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brandon_wallace • Edited

Yes. I code on the weekends on all kinds of projects. I think the important thing is not to do it all day long.

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altiano profile image
Altiano Gerung

Always.

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ysakiyev profile image
ysakiyev

That's what I'm doing right now ^_^

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madza profile image
Madza

It's Saturday, thus the question came to mind 😉

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Sergio Di Fiore

I do! But mostly study for colege...

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Andrew Pazikas

I don't I generally use the weekends to take a break from code and use it as a time to read and foster new ideas.

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Julien Prugne

When I am bored I code another unfinished pet...
Some go to github others, are just thrown away...

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Lautaro Jayat

Usually, I try to code so I can learn things that I do not practice in my job.
But yes, meeting other humans is healthy.