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I think perpetuating this stereotype is pretty bad for programmers everywhere. You can be a good programmer and passionate about your job and still not gift your time to your company without compensation. Work-life-balance is really important if you don't want to burn out after five years.

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I am pretty much in agreement with you.

However I am curious how others feel about learning on your own time. I do a fair bit of that (and the company often benefits as a result) but there is hardly a set line between working and learning in our line of work, its definitely a continuum.

If you are passionate about coding, work on free software or build a team with which you work on stuff.

This is much more rewarding than doing unpaid work for your boss on code that will probably never see the light of day anyway.

There is a lot to learn by collaborating with other people on code projects of this nature.

I'd say learning is a bit different, it might benefit your current employer but it also benefits your future employment prospects so it makes sense for you to study it in your own time. Working on your employer's work probably doesn't.

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