The test probably does weed out good engineers, but I would rather have a test for employees that yields more false negatives than false positives. I know plenty of people with families that also code in their spare time as a hobby.
People like to pretend that keeping up with the latest trends in computing takes a lot of time. But, mostly it's new people falling in love with old ideas. Consider, from a C background Ruby would seem extremely innovative, less so if you know C and python, and if you know C, python, and Lisp it's just not that novel.
PS: Sometimes people are not exceeded about bulb because they have never heard of it. Other times they know more about it than you do and are simply not impressed by yet another remix of really old ideas.
I don't think so. I think programming is a weird mix because it is largely populated by somewhat awkward introverts. Writers I know do like to write, and write each day, but they're very scheduled. One of my friends says he writes six hours a day, if he wants to more or less.
In part, I think other "creatives" value time among other humans. Whereas programmers tend not to value that as much.
Plus programming had a weird dynamic where staying up late (or not sleeping) is something to have pride in. For other creatives -- inspiration and elegance seems to be something they take much more pride in, over brute hours on a task.
OTOH, my neighbor who plays in the symphony (and is probably one of the best for her instrument in the US), plays music part time, because it can't pay the mortgage (at least not where she lives). She is a lot more into the lifestyle.
It just seems like in other creative fields there's kind of a line between the pros vs the amateurs or hobbyists -- and how they spend their down time.
Also, many professional symphony musicians I know are in multiple side groups. (jazz bands, quartets, etc) I think there are actually some parallels with coding, though I don't believe orchestras take extra-curricular activities into account during auditions.