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It really depends on the nature of hobby coding.

I dedicate considerable time to "hobby coding", including open source, and once a topic - independently of the topic - reaches a certain depth, it becomes "work", and then, the only difference with the daily job, assuming a healthy work environment, is just the choice of the topic.

Documentation, test suites, orderly repository history are not just corporate frills. Once a project reaches a certain size, the developers are, in a way, users themselves. If an open source project is even mildly popular, chores will need to be performed, which includes taking care of the users (this is actually why a sad amount of open source projects ignores PRs and issues).

So if it feels like work, while I can't say with certainly, I believe that you've just experienced how hobby coding of a certain depth, is in real world.

Ultimately, the only answer I can give, is to choose the topic very carefully - one may find that the topic that really tickle them are fewer than one would think.




On this note, contributing to open source was the best "experience" I've ever gotten as it related to my day-to-day job of maintaining a large, but still growing, project.




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