I don't now, but I certainly did in the beginning of my career. I was even pressured to as a junior developer-- I apparently wasn't learning the new framework fast enough and they suggested I study at home.
For the most part I work rather normal hours now-- but occasionally I branch out and build stuff in my free time. I agree that it's not necessary and I could maintain my normal job in development without it. But I've also been able to parlay my hobby coding into new positions or profitable side work. It has given me more confidence and freedom.
Plenty of my co-workers don't build things on their own time. But as such I'm much more likely to be given the more interesting and challenging projects. I also likely have better job security. There are lots of benefits to being one of the crazy ones building fiber networks in your basement.
Interesting. I'm a fan of reactive programming and I've built projects using react+bacon.js and found that they worked well together. I'll have to give cycle a try on a hobby project sometime.
Unfortunately I'm shoe horned into react for my client work. The majority of my projects are handed off to the client to maintain and React is sort of a selling point (because.. you know facebook uses it and all). I'm afraid I can't realistically sell Cycle.js at this point.
I can agree with you about steering clear of such a large boilerplate setup-- especially if you don't understand everything baked in. But can you explain why you would choose Mithril of Cycle.js over React?
I've been building production apps with React for about a year but at a glance I can't really see any clear advantages in Mithril or Cycle.js