Something I've been thinking about recently...

[David Crow]

Dan Neely wrote:

If you're unsure of your skills the garage is the perfect place to test them.

I'm not building a garage. The garage was "finished" several years ago into a large play room. I'm simply walling off a corner for a bedroom.

"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson

"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons

"Man who follows car will be exhausted." - Confucius

[Ravi Bhavnani]

Like many software engineers I play a musical instrument (two actually - guitar and piano). /ravi

My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com

[Ravi Bhavnani]

Very impressive, Maurizio!  :cool: /ravi

My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com

[Thomas Vanderhoof]

I like carving with a dremel. I have carved several chess pieces that look pretty good. It's to go along with the chess board I made in a college framming class. I would say that playing chess helps keep my mind open towards finding solutions. I also carved a wood chain with no breaks in the wood. That was pretty fun to do.

[Lost User]

I think it helps a lot to have an outside activity completly different than programming. At the end of work day I'm pretty burned out. The last thing I want to do is look at another computer when I get home. For me I like to work on my old hot rod, a 1933 Ford Pickup. What I enjoy is working with the vintage technology and seeing how the old engineers figured out the problems without computers.

[morganj]

I sing in a a-capella group (baritone), and occasionally paint.

[User 4443121]

An old adage about playing guitar is that it's easy to play badly, hard to play well.

[Eric Freitas]

Hmm. I'm primarily too interested in too many things. I can sort-of play the violin, I dabble in writing short stories, I build ugly but useful items from wood and now have a forge for building ugly but useful iron items. I'm also playing around with smelting brass. My most loved hobby is, a.t.m. playing with Arduino. Love it.

[S Houghtelin]

I am one of those savant types who has the ability to easily master just about activity I put my mind to where logical order is applied to achieve a successful end result, even if it doesn’t appear logical to others. I can play several instruments, Guitar very well, the rest I can play once I figure out the how to make it create noise but hardly consider myself a master. I enjoy building things out of wood and can find my way around a metal shop. Drawing, composing music, programming, repairing electronic devices and appliances and creating mechanical contrivances. Used to do all my own auto repair. (Age dictates that when the physical recovery from doing the work outlasts the time to do the work now means I hire someone else to do it). I think it all boils down to putting things to an order that satisfies you. Or fixing things that are out of order. It is a mindset talent that easily transfers to other activities that require order. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[Paul A Howes]

I'm a photographer on the side. I really enjoy taking portraits, mostly of families and children.

Paul A .NET developer who now drinks the Ruby and Cocoa Koolaid.

[nhzanne]

I take one creative class at our local art school every semester - keeps me on track with having a hobby apart from coding! This year I am focusing on drawing. I think having some kind of hobby is necessary to prevent burnout, don't think it has to be creative. I do think developers have a strong creative streak - all the ones I know are either musicians or artists or crafters of some sort.

[M Towler]

Cello, Tuba and a little piano for me. The tuba I learnt at school. The cello I took up about four years ago and is what I mostly practice. Hard work but very relaxing.

[stephen hazel]

try http://pianocheater.com[^] :-D

[stephen hazel]

Now that I've got the tricky parts of the "Dad" thing down, (Olden kids), I can return to my hobby of programming. Art#1 On a midi sequencer with bits of it like guitar hero, ... but for piano and for REAL. Art#2 http://pianocheater.com/screenshot.html[^] This is in competition with my day job, but, eh, during the 8 hr days the day job has priority. I do notice that when I'm writing some pretty decent code at work, I tend to be doing the same at home. Not sure why the "synchronicity" happens. But I've definitely noticed it. Of course, the work code is pretty booooring in comparison. But, eh, the home code won't pay the mortgage, sooo... whattayagonna do??

[Cardon Fry]

I take and art class and I play the violin.

[Flavio Marcondes de Oliveira]

I love play guitar, much more I like coding ... I usually spend all night playing Rock and Roll and drinking, and I`m sure it doesnt help me with my developer tasks on the day after at all... ;P ;P But I think working as developer you can use some creativity much more then other kinds of jobs, as we do in music like improvisation and composing.

[patbob]

I don't know about everyone else, but I find if I don't have a creative outlet and am not learning something new, I'm not happy. Sometimes those aspects get filled through what I'm doing at work, but often not. When work doesn't do it, my hobbies fill the gap. I've been surpised at how my hobbies interact with my day job, sometimes being directly applicable, but often giving me insights I wouldn't have otherwise. Current hobbies are chainmail, diesel mercedes maintence and photography. Past hobbies have been RC cars, woodworking, minor electrical engineering, Linux (back before it was cool and distros were downloaded to thirteen 3.5" floppies), and drawing. Some of the oddest things have applied.. like drawing when I needed some icons and the company couldn't affort to hire an artist, or the RC car interest, when we found an old radio controlled camera platform in a back room and it was essentially a large RC car. Even my photography applied in odd ways. I work for an immersive imaging company, so it applies in an obvious way, but through that hobby I've also learned about color spaces, how to do some pretty sophisticated things in photoshop & gimp, and even some inner workings of the JPG library, all of which have been invaluable in my day job.

patbob

[irenuncio]

I sing opera and I'm also paid for that.

[SadieQ]

Stilt walking. zebras with angle grinders at a rock festival last weekend. (spent all my time on stage thinking of code.. not) :laugh: