Developers need to code after-hours in order to stay competitive in part because our industry enables businesses to not to provide continual learning time during an employee's workday.

If you had, say, 20% of your work week to practice on skills, technologies, patterns or ideas that weren't a direct deliverable: would the average you still feel compelled to spend so much of your free time additionally practicing skills (ultimately to the benefit of your employer)?

We bemoan the scourge of scope creep and the waste of mass meetings. Businesses demanding only short-term saleable output from developers is another drag on sustainable productivity.