&quot;Isn&#x27;t there something to be said for that? Not every skill needs to lead directly to a job. Can&#x27;t it just be another skill to have when you need it?&quot;<p>Amen. I&#x27;m constantly writing little Ruby scripts to do some automated task, usually fixing CSVs or extracting data to load it in a database to compensate for crappy reporting in a tool I use. I suppose that this or my recreational Clojure programming is something I could turn into a job, but I prefer to have it be a tool that allows me to do my job better. Or to run better D&amp;D campaigns...<p>There definitely is a divide between like software engineer, and say person who uses programming to make their job a bit more efficient. It seems as though everyone is representing it as a binary choice when as paulcole said it&#x27;s more of a gradient.