I came across this blog post on the habits of aspiring software developers. Although I'm way past school I thought the point (#6) on emotional investment in pet projects compared to assignments rings true. In my experience, I have taken on voluntary work in my own time and developed a primary school website with a CMS to allow self adminstration. It's an ideal platform to try out new things like version updates to .NET Framework and coding styles and even though my kids are no longer there I keep in contact with the Head to progress enhancements - one of the reasons is the emotional investment in my software! Anyway the front-end is a little shaky in Firefox so I know that my CSS needs some attention.....