[k_kelly]

People are saying this is pedantry, but there's a good point being made here. Coding passion is a deep cold analytic burn that is nothing like what people assume it to be. It typically is a reflection of the interest you have in the project not the product. Most developers can hate what they work on and do incredible work if they love what they are doing minute to minute.

No I won't be a passionate evangelist about spreadsheets, but I could get happily lost in the codebase for Google Docs. People code for 48 hours when lost in the happy delirium of discovering some new problem, that's passion. However it might have nothing to do with their personal investment for the finished product. In fact they likely really enjoy the challenge of fixing something broken more than seeing it run once fixed.

Putting passion on a job spec is really quite unreasonable, but it seems easier than saying single minded to a fault and willing to sacrifice personal health to do a bit more hacking.

[danielweber]

I might stay up late coding for something like a CTF, but I'm fully aware that what I'm pushing out is something that just barely qualifies in one metric ("it runs!"), and it will be totally unmaintainable even by me the next day.

But I limit my professional work hours because it demands a long-term quality. Some other poor guy might come by and need to figure out what I did.