What have you developed in your spare time?

Instead, I would ask "What would you like to develop in your spare time, if you had any?" That way they can answer the same as his question if they are working on stuff, but can still show interest in programming otherwise.

Frankly, yeah, it can be hard to stay on top of things, and companies that don't foster learning and expect you to do it all on your own time don't help.

But here's the thing: If you think that this is a bad question to ask in an interview, I have a challenge for you: Describe a repeatable, objective process for interviewing developers. No hand-waving "I talk to them and decide if they're smart." Be specific: What questions do you ask? What constitutes a HIRE, what constitutes a NO HIRE?

If you actually try to make a repeatable, objective process, you realize that there is no fair interview question. It's impossible to come up with a set of criteria that can't either be (a) gamed by false positives, or (b) overlooks good people as false negatives.

For example, "Successful experience in a similar position" is an excellent criterium. But we all know it overlooks false negatives, people who have done good work in dissimilar positions but will adapt and thrive in this one.

In the end, we must either 'fess up and admit that we make subjective decisions, or set our jaw and accept that some false negatives are a necessary and acceptable cost of trying to standardize our hiring process.

(That doesn't mean we can't minimize the number of false negatives. One way to do that is to ask many questions and to incorporate all of the answers into your decision. If you're very conservative, you take any negative result as a NO HIRE, which leads to having more false negatives but a vanishingly small probability of a false positive. But you can go the other way and allow for some of the answers to be negative, which will create a vanishingly small possibility of a false negative overall but allow some acceptably small probability of a false positive.)

However, everyone is different. I think having written and shared at least a small utility or library is a good indicator to me, I wouldn't discount someone because they had not written programs or libraries in their spare time. Especially if they come recommended and have a good work history.

I find all too often that interviews are just about impressing the interviewer. Everyone has their own idea of what makes a good programmer. When they sit across the table from a candidate I think many interviewers are looking for people that fit that mould.

edit: glaring spelling error

For a variety of reasons, there are many one-dimensional programmers out there -- people who seem to be only interested in computers and oblivious to everything else. Come on people, the world is wide. Programming is not the best way to become an enterprising, dynamic individual. Unless your company is anti-risk and boring, don't you want to hire people who are different from you? People who have taken crazy trips around the world and learned skills that provide lateral insights rather than just what you get out of sitting at a computer writing code and reading Hacker News?

If someone could provide evidence of doing something daring, that would show more initiative to me than a GitHub project.

Basically the question can be translated to: "Is programming the only thing you care about in life, if so we're more likely to hire you because we need a machine rather than a human being". As an employer, I can probably see that being a better bang for your buck. In fact if you could have a codemonkey work 12 hours a day without burning out for years for the same pay as a guy who works 8 hour days, would you really turn that guy down?

I wrote an article on this recently.

What’s the most important thing to know as a developer? http://sydl.me/1thingtoknow

I want to keep learning new stuff... the only way to learn is by playing with it. So I create stupid little sites quite often http://instac.at http://isitherapture.com http://obamasmessagetoamerica.com

The list goes on...

I built http://www.snowboardfinder.com a little while ago using ASP.Net MVC. Now i'm using it to learn more about mongodb and even creating a duplicate version in django just because I love python

coding should be fun and putting your mind to a personal project lets you explore

In the end, I think the author is correct when it comes to students (however, the author doesn't address the difference between students and pros)... Maybe not such a good idea for the in-the-field professional.

And am building a facebook application: http://namesucker.com

One pattern in all these, I lose interest and they fizzle out. So, if i could pose a question here, how do you keep yourself motivated?

Aside from the fact I think this line of reasoning is useless there is another -- more important -- issue. I don't care what people do in their off time. That's theirs, not mine. It is the same reason that I don't drug test.

I guess this extreme isn't too good either but there's always something to be done :)