Something I've been thinking about recently...

[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: