Don’t Pursue Programming if You Aren’t Passionate About It

It depends on what is meant by "wealthy" really. Plenty of non-manager technical staff in the bay area can become financially well enough off to be considered wealthy, given enough time and judicious allocation of their savings. There are very few programmers outside high-paying tech hot-spots like SF who will ever be wealthy without moving into management.

There are other factors to consider though. Generally speaking in most instances, even the interesting companies, management is going to be a faster, more reliable path to wealth. My observations lead me to conclude that:

1. Most technical staff is generally considered fungible by management, even at interesting companies, so layoffs can and do tend to impact non-management harder and more frequently, and this impacts long-term earnings.

2. Even at interesting companies management is generally compensated better in terms of salary, bonuses and (as management level rises) bonuses and stock grants. This generally isn't just a few percentage points difference in the pay, either: in most places outside those high-paying hotspots managers tend to be paid wages that are much closer to SV wages than programmers will ever see, so the difference is even greater there.

Well the alternative is that you narrow your knowladge to a small problem domain which sounds horrible for

   1) your own mind,
   2) your ability to talk to people who work outside of your problem domain, and 
   3) your ability to think outside of the "box" that is held by your field.

"Make Programming Great Again"

I believe this is the worst advice ever. Passion is a really misunderstood concept. What does it mean to be passionate about something?

Does it mean enjoying doing something all the time? Well, that's just unhealthy.

Does it mean you have a skill in something you constantly improve? Everybody needs to start from zero.

Does it mean you work on your pet projects in your free time? This will likely change throughout your life.

Does it mean the field excites you? That is not a good reason to work on something - I'm really passionate about books, but I'm not a writer and don't think I will ever be(or will want to be).

The only real metric for passion is sticking with something for a long time and being happy about it. How the hell would you know it before you start? How would you even know it a few years in? People burnout all the time.

Saying that you have to be passionate about something is terrible. It discourages people from actually trying. It makes them question their motives. It makes them think if they should start doing something instead of actually trying to do it.

You don't need passion to be a decent developer. Hell, sometimes you'll hate your job and it's normal too. What you need is talent, by which I mean cognitive ability to learn field's concepts. You won't know if you have it unless you try.

Yes, people shouldn't get into programming just because they think it is a good career - there is a lot of stuff that will turn people off which code schools do not mention - lots of stress, cognitive load, sedentary lifestyle. It's not for everybody. But TRYING to get into field because it's a good career is as good a reason as any. Time will tell if you stick around.

Perhaps it's just my perception, but I find we as Americans are very keen on this notion of being absolutely "passionate" about the career we choose. My mother had a much more practical outlook (maybe it had something to do with her immigrating to America as a refugee at the end of the Vietnam war): she said "very few people are actually in a field they love. It's common for people to completely change their careers several times over their lives. If you can find a job you don't hate and it pays well, great! That's better than what a lot of people have. If you can find a job that pays well and that you maybe even like from time to time, even better."

Don't get me wrong; I enjoy programming. But it's far from my #1 passion in life. It's what pays the bills. I don't do side-projects (at least as of right now).

I'm actually inclined to agree with the author to a certain degree: being passionate about programming will make you a better developer. The same could be said for any field though.

Also, to his last bullet point about needing to constantly be learning: I think a person could learn a long-living language (e.g. Java, C++, C#) and expect to have a decent career. Sure if you're aiming to work for startup X, you'll probably need to be hip to newest (and therefore supposedly "best") tech. Even though Java has been the butt of many jokes, it seems like there's always a need for Java engineers!