Most people have various interests and obligations. The number of people who after a day of work in software engineering go on to continue to do that in their free time instead of pursuing other interests is vanishingly small.
Additionally you have people who also just can’t do this, even if they wanted to, due to other obligations.
Obviously there are people who have a very narrow set of interests and leave their office to go to a hacker space but that is such an absurdly small group that it’s ridiculous to even consider them in hiring.
In fact you probably want to avoid having an entire team of people like this in favor of a more diverse group of people.
It is, however, an advantage that some folks have, and my suggestion is that we should not be required to deliberately hobble ourselves, just because everyone does not have the same advantage.
Of course, a hiring corporation has every right to ignore things like this, and they likely won’t go out of business, as a result. They, may, however, miss talent that could take their business to “the next level,” and risk hiring folks that have become expert at “gaming the system,” and presenting style, over substance.
