[Swizec]

> a love and passion for coding as a recreational activity that defies our conventional beliefs about software as a craft & industry.

I must be in the wrong "conventional", but I always thought everyone saw coding/hacking as a past time that they are lucky enough to be able to turn into money as well. Most if not all of top developers are hobbyists first and professionals second.

[reeses]

Many are "failed" mathematicians and physicists (among other pursuits) that were unable to earn a reasonable living in their primary field.

I say "failed" only in that it was surprising to me when I discovered numbers of developers with PhDs (or ABD) in purer fields of reasoned discovery or construction than I would have previously expected to be found writing, say, web application servers in the employ of a company not related to their field of study.