Well it was a way for me to maintain my sanity while programming all the time.
I would stay alive with drones protecting me while I'm mining in Eve and programming in Darkbasic at the same time. I would go back to Eve every 15 mins or so when my cargo was full to warp to the nearest station, unload and warp back to mine. If there was an attack the sound kept working so I'd hear weapons fire even when the window was minimized... so it was an easy check to see if I needed to do anything. After a couple of hours of doing that I would 150 million plus isk richer and made progress in whatever project I was working on in Darkbasic Pro.
When not programming I'd be totally focused on Eve Online. It's much more than mining... it's just that mining is so boring it's better to do other things while doing it.