FWIW, my eye doctor happens to be a fantastic wildlife and nature photographer.
I think the article author has a good point - in some cases. For a programmer working in a strict waterfall project, who's "just coding his allocated items of a per-determined feature list", passion might not be important (and may even be contra-indicated, they'll likely leave when they work it out). But if you need creativity from your coders, some level of passion in _something_ is important. I suspect if an interview candidate lighted up telling the story of their quadcopter or bamboo bicycle or burningman project or anything where they can demonstrate solving problems within a set of constraints - even if it didn't involve a single line of code - it would have been looked upon more favorably than somebody who can't demonstrate passion about _anything_.
I agree about the passion indicator. I over interviewed and was told to prepare a 15 presentation on anything I cared about. It did not have to be technical, but I needed to be prepared for questions.
The interview ended up being one of my best interview experiences though I turned down the job.
I think the article author has a good point - in some cases. For a programmer working in a strict waterfall project, who's "just coding his allocated items of a per-determined feature list", passion might not be important (and may even be contra-indicated, they'll likely leave when they work it out). But if you need creativity from your coders, some level of passion in _something_ is important. I suspect if an interview candidate lighted up telling the story of their quadcopter or bamboo bicycle or burningman project or anything where they can demonstrate solving problems within a set of constraints - even if it didn't involve a single line of code - it would have been looked upon more favorably than somebody who can't demonstrate passion about _anything_.