Een interesante vraag met een erg inzichtvol antwoord.
Vraag : I don't program in my spare time. Does that make me a bad developer?
Een klein stukje uit het antwoord :
Progress is NOT linear. It's logarithmic:
The only reason that a musician might practice longer than 3 hours, is that they need to squeeze out the extra 1% that those hours gives them. If you think that applies to you, re-solving a problem CS solved 2 decades ago, then you have a prima-donna complex to boot.
I've worked in pressure cooker companies before, and trust me, the actual amount of work that those guys get done isn't any better than a company like 37signals that places constraints on the amount of work: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/996-why-i-love-working-with-family-people
What ends up happening is that sure, you may be in front of a computer for 10-12 hours, and in the office for 2 more, but that doesn't include the 90 minute lunch you took, the 2 hours you spent browsing discussion forums, and the hour break you had to play one of the many games laid out in the office (foosball, pool, yada...).
Look back at that graph. Now back to me.
Your mind actually has the opportunity to expand much more if you engage it in some other activity: Learn to play an instrument. Learn a foreign language. Better yet get out and get some exercise, and connect with real live people.
On the logarithmic nature of productivity:
In the renowned 1993 study of young violinists, performance researcher Anders Ericsson found that the best ones all practiced the same way: in the morning, in three increments of no more than 90 minutes each, with a break between each one. Ericcson found the same pattern among other musicians, athletes, chess players and writers.
For Real Productivity, Less is Truly More
This is actually a well-known principle in the business world, I'm surprised more programmers haven't heard of it.
Het is erg de moeite het hele artikel op de bovengenoemde website te noemen !