This kinda remind me of a lunch that I have with an old friend. I was asking him (he works at a fairly large company) if he knows anybody who learns or codes stuff that is outside of their working area, and his answer is, possibly in the whole building that he works, there isn't another one.

Myself being a optimist, I don't believe that statement, there is probably someone. It has to be. Then again it could just be my wishful thinking.

I've started to think that it is wishful thinking. That was a big realization from that experience, that my echo chamber of programming sites and blogs and friends was not representative of programmers as a whole at all.

I also saw the appeal of that side of the industry. These guys all had way more varied hobbies and family lives since the programming stuff is "just my job" and had a good stable career path because any motivation we in the hacker news crowd would spend on learning new cool stuff they spend on jockying for position in the big office social/political world.

The lure of the office drone never got me though, it was too obvious to me that you are just selling the best part of your day for most of the week during the best part of your life only for money, since the actual hours are spent doing something you are marginally competent at and find uninspiring.