All those activities in other professions don't involve learning. Presumably, balancing a checkbook is a solved problem but an enthusiastic accountant may have brushed up on Sarbanes-Oxley legislation to learn how their craft would get impacted. Lawyers may not hold mock trials but they may read journals in their spare time which cover interesting precedent-setting cases. Doctors don't do surgery for fun but they may read up on newly discovered surgical techniques for reattaching severed nerves. And someone in construction might read up on new, energy-efficient construction techniques and materials... but odds are good they don't lay bricks at home.
So yeah, don't go home after work and write Hello World or re-implement bubble sort yet again. But do keep up with developments in your craft. If you don't have this opportunity at work, hopefully (for your own sake) you still do take the opportunity outside of work. Software changes so fast that most don't have time during work to keep up. If you let your knowledge get too out of date, your value diminishes rapidly. I think this speaks for a need for more work-sponsored learning opportunities, whether that's courses, conferences, or Google-style 20% time.
Personally, I wouldn't want to be operated on by a doctor whose knowledge of surgery stopped in 1960.
I find it much easier in the evenings to read about programming than to program. For me that is not the same, although it is very useful also, on a bit different level.
So yeah, don't go home after work and write Hello World or re-implement bubble sort yet again. But do keep up with developments in your craft. If you don't have this opportunity at work, hopefully (for your own sake) you still do take the opportunity outside of work. Software changes so fast that most don't have time during work to keep up. If you let your knowledge get too out of date, your value diminishes rapidly. I think this speaks for a need for more work-sponsored learning opportunities, whether that's courses, conferences, or Google-style 20% time.
Personally, I wouldn't want to be operated on by a doctor whose knowledge of surgery stopped in 1960.