Even when you're your own boss (as I am), you don't always get to do what you want. But I think the size of the firm you're with makes a large difference to the amount of time you have to be a developer versus whatever other hats you may end up wearing. I think this is largely just because having more people in the firm means more time spent communicating with those other people.

I do believe I spend far more time being a developer doing at least semi-interesting stuff than many people in our field do. It isn't necessarily very 'Computer Science' by your definition, but it keeps me interested in my job (most of the time).

As for the open source on the side deal, i'm really only just getting started in that area. It's kind of exciting though. Up till now i've been a pretty passive member of the Perl community, and it feels good to be taking a slightly more active role. And it gets me thinking about programming problems i wouldn't necessarily be tackling at work.

In reply to Re: Avoiding "brain drain" in the corporate realm by AidanLee
in thread Avoiding "brain drain" in the corporate realm by flyingmoose

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