Developers get paid market price for their labor, right now employers pay them above median salary, some commenter on HN wants to point out a correlation between this particular developer's choice to spend their time to learn a new skill and their current market valuation suggesting that the latter follows from the former.
Agreed, welders for example spend a lot of their spare time working on side projects, learning new ways of welding, etc. Carpenters spend a lot of time on family and friends home projects. There is no correlation between a programmers willingness to learn and the median salary for the industry
There is. Programming is a non-linear field, while welding is a linear one, unless you become a successful welding-artist.
If you ask welders, there is definitely an art to it. Check out /r/welding sometime.
I think that most people would have used interim time to, oh I don't know, travel? finish a game? not do more "work"
I think they mean that as developers, we should be continually learning?