I belonged to the first generation of kids who had programming as a hobby. Started programming BASIC from a book that I found in the library when I was 12 or so (on paper, no cheap computers then), then got a ZX81 at the beginning of the 80s, and then went on to an Amstrad CPC, and finally an IBM PC. I also got to play with a PDP 11 on the way. Later studied philosophy, but kept the hobby, then worked professionally as a programmer for 20 years, until I got a chance to work as a philosopher. I dropped a safe, lifelong IT job that was going nowhere in the long run, for an extremely insecure philosophy lecturer job in China. The call of adventure, I guess. In my heart, though, I'm still a programmer. I enjoy hacker humour, not philosopher humour. In my free time, I read programming books, not philosophy books. When you started programming at 12, it stays with you for life. I'm now a programmer working as a philosopher, and if I do something else I'll still be a programmer doing something else. There's no regret, just a feeling of belonging to a particular culture, and this will not change, no matter what I do. That's why I read HN, and still play around with some of the new tools, frameworks, languages etc. But the philosophy job was too good to miss.
Sorry for the delayed answer. We're on China time here :)
For me, it's mostly teaching, but even "extreme" amounts of teaching as a lecturer amounts to about 15 hours of classes per week. Compared with my 60 weekly working hours as a developer, this is almost perpetual holiday. Of course, there are exams to grade, lecture notes to write, and such. Also, you need to publish stuff in academic journals, and this is quite hard sometimes, because there are only limited amounts of journals in which everyone has to publish, so the competition can be fierce. Contracts are fixed-term for the lower ranks, so if you are unlucky, you can easily find yourself out of work every two years or so. So it has advantages (less stress, nicer work, more freedom), and disadvantages (unsafe job, cut-throat competition, generally less money) compared to IT.
