The best developers I've worked with are the ones who realize that while passion is helpful, it often fails you at the times when you need it most. As an examp

The best developers I've worked with are the ones who realize that while passion is helpful, it often fails you at the times when you need it most. As an example, if I'm in the middle of a 3 a.m. debugging session because someone slipped a bug into production and customers are complaining and the company is losing money, I find that stone-cold professional determination is more reliable than passion. I've worked with developers who has busy lives and families. They didn't do much programming outside of work, and they mostly worked 9-5. But they were so locked-in, determined, and professional while on the clock that they kicked ass and outperformed most of their colleagues. What programming they did do outside of the office was carefully chosen to help them keep up to date with the latest and greatest. This isn't meant to knock passionate developers; I consider myself one of them. But given the opportunity in the future, I'd gladly work with a team of hyper-productive, focused, professional developers even if they don't have the 'passion' for programming that a lot of job postings seem to be looking for.