[aristofun]

Controversial point - many problems of today's IT industry stem from people taking their job too personal.

Do you know many plumbers or doctors who are so connected to their work that they do plumbing or doctoring as a hobby?

I personally try to avoid such Programmers when possible, they usually overengineer everything they touch just for the sake of engineering. Without even realizing there is a problem.

[zeroonetwothree]

This seems like an analogy in bad faith. How would plumbing as a hobby even make sense?

Compare to jobs like writers, scientists, carpenters, mechanics, etc that are much closer to programmers in spirit and do have a lot of people doing them in their free time.

[aristofun]

> This seems like an analogy in bad faith. How would plumbing as a hobby even make sense?

Exactly!

> Compare to jobs like writers, scientists, carpenters, mechanics, etc that are much closer to programmers in spirit and do have a lot of people doing them in their free time.

This is your bias of equating programming to an art form. And that's the core of the problem.

[MisterTea]

There is a middle ground: programmers who want to program as a hobby and do something else for a job. They tend to want small, efficient code that is easy to understand and debug. Unfortunately, most find themselves writing code for a living.

[aristofun]

> They tend to want small, efficient code that is easy to understand and debu

In my experience it’s quite opposite. Majority of both hobbyists and professionals have strong tendency to engineer as the main mode and a goal of itself vs shipping the value.

[oldestofsports]

I'm pretty sure many doctors see themselves as being a doctor by identity, not just a person who works as a doctor.

If there is prestige in the profession, it seems to often become an identity.