improvement

Spare Time Projects, Part 2

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about “spare time” projects – programming projects undertaken to learn something new, try something out, see how something works. These are activities undertaken to improve your skills and, maybe, scratch an itch that’s been bothering you. These projects aren’t typically related to work. In the past few days, Oren Eini (aka Ayende Rahien) wrote a couple of posts expressing the opinion that if you don’t do such projects, he probably doesn’t want to hire you.

Spare Time Projects

It’s pretty common to see discussions about how to determine if a candidate for a programming job has a “passion” for programming and software. One of the usual pieces of advice is to ask about the projects someone does in their “spare time.”