Passion means wanting to do something. Professionalism means doing stuff you don't like because it's necessary. The acid test is often how the person responds t

Passion means wanting to do something. Professionalism means doing stuff you don't like because it's necessary. The acid test is often how the person responds to their work being flamed. * -passionate -professional: ignore it * -passionate +professional: respond neutrally, "agree to disagree" if the flames continue * +passionate -professional: flame back, send ASCII dongs * +passionate +professional: stick with it, prove beyond reasonable doubt (often by demonstration) that the flamer is wrong All my opinion, of course, but I find the distinction useful. A good organization needs both passionate and professional people, though they need not be the same people. The trick is to put people who have only one attribute into roles where their strengths are maximized and their weaknesses minimized. Don't put the passionate amateur in front of enterprise customers, and don't put the boring pro in front of idealistic programmers.