Since you started your career in programming, you have a certain interest in the field. You typically work 8 hours a day 40 hours a week in this demanding field. You get paid to solve problems. And mostly as long as you solve problems you are getting paid for longer.
This makes you a good (sic!) programmer. And there is nothing wrong with it. You do not need to have a twitter account, a githubrepo or blog about what you do, to be good at what you are doing - though the hype wants you to believe otherwise.
If your employer wants you to improve, it is in his own interest to pay you (or to give you time) to do that. Of course he could fire you and hire others, but that works only for some time - it is a sign for bad corporate climate, which doesn't bind people to the company and which is detrimental in the long run; although, the company doesn't realize at first.
So, what to make out of Uncle Bob's advice? You could read it in two ways:
1) If you are dedicated to your job and love what you do, it will be natural to do more than others - even in your spare time: because it is fun to you. That's the way it works for me. I spent time beyond my workday on education, because I like to do so. And when I am doing nothing, I have no guilty conscience about it.
A side-effect is, that my knowledge about things may be broader than that of others. But, that doesn't degrade their knowledge or make me magically better.
2) You could read it as a general advice: If you want to get better at something, you should perhaps spent more time on it. If you want to be a competitive programmer, you should invest more time in training your skills. But that is nothing, one wouldn't have known without Uncle Bob.
Uncle Bob's advice is ill advice, because it is a recipe to feel bad about yourself.
This is an important fact which Uncle Bob seems to forget sometimes. It's a good thing that software devs are not only trained to code, but also to think! So I hope that most of his readers remember that fact, even if Bob doesn't.
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I would like to turn it upside down:
Since you started your career in programming, you have a certain interest in the field. You typically work 8 hours a day 40 hours a week in this demanding field. You get paid to solve problems. And mostly as long as you solve problems you are getting paid for longer.
This makes you a good (sic!) programmer. And there is nothing wrong with it. You do not need to have a twitter account, a githubrepo or blog about what you do, to be good at what you are doing - though the hype wants you to believe otherwise.
If your employer wants you to improve, it is in his own interest to pay you (or to give you time) to do that. Of course he could fire you and hire others, but that works only for some time - it is a sign for bad corporate climate, which doesn't bind people to the company and which is detrimental in the long run; although, the company doesn't realize at first.
So, what to make out of Uncle Bob's advice? You could read it in two ways:
1) If you are dedicated to your job and love what you do, it will be natural to do more than others - even in your spare time: because it is fun to you. That's the way it works for me. I spent time beyond my workday on education, because I like to do so. And when I am doing nothing, I have no guilty conscience about it.
A side-effect is, that my knowledge about things may be broader than that of others. But, that doesn't degrade their knowledge or make me magically better.
2) You could read it as a general advice: If you want to get better at something, you should perhaps spent more time on it. If you want to be a competitive programmer, you should invest more time in training your skills. But that is nothing, one wouldn't have known without Uncle Bob.
Uncle Bob's advice is ill advice, because it is a recipe to feel bad about yourself.
You are not your job.
Love how you look at this, thanks for sharing your vision!
This is an important fact which Uncle Bob seems to forget sometimes. It's a good thing that software devs are not only trained to code, but also to think! So I hope that most of his readers remember that fact, even if Bob doesn't.