If the author of this blog post reads this then if I may, I have a few comments, and everyone else should take note as-well ;)
"When they talk about how they live to program and never leave the lab"
THEY ARE BORING.
I LOVE programming, however I also LOVE playing with my 2-year old, playing poker with the fella's, practicing origami, watching movies, working on my (admittedly horrible) art skills.
I know exactly where you are coming from when you say that you are worried about your programming skills not being 'up to snuff' but trust me, it is a small price to pay for having a life that is fun and enjoyable. It's these people skills and life skills that will make you more-rounded, and I'll be frank when I say that the more-rounded you are, the more likely you are to have fun, and the more you have fun the more it will show. And the more it shows you enjoy life, the more people/bosses/hiring managers will want to hire you to work around them.
It isn't always the technical skills, most of the time it's the soft skills that make a difference. So practice your knitting, and definitely practice the Japanese. And next time you are asked about what you have as a hobby, be honest. It will impress.
In defense of the obssessed, let me say that "fun" is relative.
Lets' take CS out of the equation and consider the case of many basketball players. In their college and highschools, they found themselves mixed in with people who were good at sports but had no great innate talents, and also didn't obsesses about practice. These people punched their clock---coming in for after school practice---then went home to enjoy other hobbies.
Now the outliers---the ones who would eventually make it to the NBA--were a different breed. Not only were they innately talented, but they obsessed about the game from the point of view of a 'normal' player. They practiced their free throws till they were perfect, they re-watched their games till strategy was second nature, they pushed their natural abilities to the limits and as a result had far less time to do anything else.
The same applies to prima-balerinas who often started training at age 6, to young chess grandmasters who simply played and studied chess more than anyone else their age, to anyone who's field was competitive enough that mere talent wouldn't take you to the top.
Is Usian Bolt boring? Was Pierina Legnani boring?
And for that matter--do they consider their training to be boring?
Coming back to CS, computer science encoompases a wide enough range that one can have a "hobby" that is in CS that isn't similar to their job or studies. For example one can specialize in logic programming as their job, but come home and play around by (a) making a procedurally generated game with their kid, (b) a poker-bot for those online games they play, (c) a flash card program so they can better learn Japanese, (d) a better Netflix recommendation engine, or (e) art with RaphaelJS. All of these involve some level of programming, and some level of Computer Science. Are they all boring just because they still involve CS?
"When they talk about how they live to program and never leave the lab"
THEY ARE BORING.
I LOVE programming, however I also LOVE playing with my 2-year old, playing poker with the fella's, practicing origami, watching movies, working on my (admittedly horrible) art skills.
I know exactly where you are coming from when you say that you are worried about your programming skills not being 'up to snuff' but trust me, it is a small price to pay for having a life that is fun and enjoyable. It's these people skills and life skills that will make you more-rounded, and I'll be frank when I say that the more-rounded you are, the more likely you are to have fun, and the more you have fun the more it will show. And the more it shows you enjoy life, the more people/bosses/hiring managers will want to hire you to work around them.
It isn't always the technical skills, most of the time it's the soft skills that make a difference. So practice your knitting, and definitely practice the Japanese. And next time you are asked about what you have as a hobby, be honest. It will impress.