As long as there is a market where <SOMEBODY> pays a regular recurring paycheck for <ACTIVITY>, that <ACTIVITY> will attract people who are not particularly passionate about the job. This is ok.
That activity is different from <SPECULATIVE WORK> without a steady paycheck such as writing novels, composing a song, and painting original art. Those fields absolutely require passion because of the constant rejections and overwhelming odds that your work will not be a "hit."
Programming work is a very wide field that encompasses both maintenance work and the artistic work. The jobs that are mostly maintenance work can attract people who are competent but not necessarily passionate. They're not going to wake up in the morning and get excited about moving a zip code field 1 pixel on a shopping cart form. But they compartmentalize that 8 hours of that programming that companies need and then go home to play with their kids. The essay ignores that scenario which is probably the vast majority of programming jobs.
That activity is different from <SPECULATIVE WORK> without a steady paycheck such as writing novels, composing a song, and painting original art. Those fields absolutely require passion because of the constant rejections and overwhelming odds that your work will not be a "hit."
Programming work is a very wide field that encompasses both maintenance work and the artistic work. The jobs that are mostly maintenance work can attract people who are competent but not necessarily passionate. They're not going to wake up in the morning and get excited about moving a zip code field 1 pixel on a shopping cart form. But they compartmentalize that 8 hours of that programming that companies need and then go home to play with their kids. The essay ignores that scenario which is probably the vast majority of programming jobs.