Being a passionate developer, I'm sometimes amazed when people in the industry have not heard about key technologies, news stories, new sites, development podcasts, etc.
Does not reading RSS feeds, listening to podcasts, or following key Twitter users indicate that a person is not passionate about their occupation and therefore not the best that they can be? Would you hire such a person?
Nope, if a developer doesn't do any of the things above, that does not mean they are not passionate about their job. There are various ways one can improve himself.
Besides, how do you define a key Twitter user? Or how do you figure out which are the important podcasts and RSS feeds?
Full disclosure: I have no idea whatsoever what Csla or DntTV are. And I have heard of jQuery, but I don't know jack how to use it.
I still consider myslef quite passionate about my job as a software engineer...
I, for myself, hate podcasts and the like and do not read RSS feeds, nor do I use Twitter. That may be your way of being passionate about development, but people are different. JQuery is a highly specialized library and is of absolutely no use to someone who doesn't do web or HTML development. So what you expect as given for any good developer is highly subjective and so yes, I would hire someone who doesn't know or like that.
Apart from that, I agree with you that a developer should be passionate about development, but it is solely his own decision on how and when he lives this passion. And if he doesn't do all the things you said and is still a good developer, I'd still hire him. No need to be a geek to be a good programmer.
Some people have a separation of work and personal life, they code for a paycheck and not because they are passionate about code. This does not mean that they are poor developers by any means, they just have different priorities. They might not be keeping up with the latest and greatest technologies like us but they understand what they need to know and find the rest via google.
People don't have to like all the things that you like in order to be considered a good developer. They are allowed to have other interests, and in fact may be shocked to hear that you haven't heard of some of the things that they use daily.
Different != Bad
Stackoverlow, Facebook, Twitter - while cool and useful and all - are not core development technologies. If a professional programmer has other commitments (say, a family), this doesn't mean that they know less because they don't spend every waking hour online. What matters is the product.
I must say that form your keyword I only know Stackoverflow and jQuery. The Stackoverflow I know since 11 days. I read journals, I read forums and RSS feeds. But currently there are so such many new technologies that never can know about at all. The most time I spend the work and not the surfing in the Internet.
If you need an expert on this themas then it is critical else it is not a large problem. If every know about all techniques then he have no time to work.
I'm probably going to get modded down for this, but some people just don't need to be on top of the latest "Web 2.0" fads in order to be a good developer. If you're writing FORTRAN for a living, and doing a damn good job, there's really no reason to check out someones podcast on the latest AJAX/RoR/etc bandwagon. Just because they're not on top of the 'latest and greatest' doesn't make them any less of a software engineer.
I wouldn't use it as a filter for hiring, since there are other ways to broaden ones mind to the aid of programming skills. Many people choose to read books to improve their design skills, and dont have time to listen or follow podcasts and Twitter. Passion is expressed in many ways.
Its also possible that somebody who is up to date with blogs and podcasts, isn't necessarily doing it on their own time, and instead using company time to do so.
I think the best way to ascertain somebodies passion for programming is to ask what they do to improve their skills outside of work hours. If they choose to follow blogs, awesome. If they choose to devote their time to the local user group, thats just as good.
As long as they do something.
The passion is .. to create stuff, which solve problems. If it requires reading all these site, anyone will do these. On the other hand, if it requires reading thick old manuals, any body would do that.
How and What other are creating is a very important part of this. Everybody has his/her own way of discovering that. Socio-Proggy sites are not the only way. There are things like ACM, IEEE, IRC etc .
Because you don't need to know everything to be decent developer\professional. Actually professionalism comes at a cost - you can't be guru in multiple fields of activity. Of course there is a type of people who don't bother to improve their skills or learn something new. Basically I can mark out:
Both of those types are rare available on market. Experts don't have problems with finding good job. Lazy guys don't bother to change their job (they don't care :))
Passion is not always a good thing. Sometimes people obsessed with their job take failures up close and personal and it can harm project badly. Cold blooded professional - that's the hero of development shops :)
IMO good developer should always try to follow new trends (I don't mean instantly switch to something, just know what it is and what it is good for), it's good for career and very interesting.
Quite frankly, the reality is that many people look at IT as a job and nothing else. The problem is simple. When was the last time you saw a commercial saying "take this training course for 6 weeks and become a Doctor?" The market is being flooded by people who want to get into software strictly for the money. Because the barrier for entry is so low, and doesn't require a lot of effort (compare six months of "certification" to the 8 years it takes to become a doctor).
I predict that something will happen that will result in software development becoming a regulated field with more stringent qualifications for entry. This process will wash out the majority of people who are not dedicated to software.
I didnt hear about twitter until one day i was watching cnn and rick sanchez said he's doing something and taking questions through it. I checked out the sight and thought, geeze, do I really need everyone knowing that I am now taking a piss?
Some technologies are good for some people, some are not. I have no use for this, but some people might.
And then some technologies are more a fad than anything else. Some are there and just too damned addicting so I stay away from them.
It really comes down to, are they useful for me.
If I have to choose between a person who never update his knowledge and one who does it in a way that enhance his value for the job, I will definitely choose the second one.
This industry goes very fast so updating your knowledge about it, is a very important thing I don't care if your resources are conventions, blogs, books, twitter, courses, podcasts or some new fancy website like stackoverflow I even think this is so important that every good company should give his employees a portion of his daily job time to do it.
This question reminds me of the TechCrunch rise and Web 2.0 start up days. Remember the overload of rounded corners, over sized input fields, and huge text? As you can tell along with twitter certain things are popular at times but not always practical.
I personally see no direct association between what websites a user is familiar with, how many RSS feeds they have, and how that somehow plays into their level of passion about their craft. Web 3.0 anyone?
I come to stackoverflow because I'm a programmer. I've used twitter but in my opinion, it's retarded (no offense.) I'm a web developer and have been for a considerable amount of time. Having seen Prototype progress, along with script.aculo.us, and other javascript frameworks like jQuery. I prefer jQuery for it's elegance and speed. The problem here is you're throwing programmers into one big pool. When I develop for my iPhone I don't use Javascript, PHP, Python, Java, Ruby, Perl, OR anything else. I use C and Objective-C respectively.
I understand your thought process but disagree with your generalities. If you're a web developer, you should be familiar with a variety of things and yes, most web developers (keyword being web) have similar references and sites bookmarked. It is in no way shape or form an indication of passion, nor ability necessarily.
But hell =P Just my 2 cents.
To quote Donald Rumsfeld, I think this is a case of the knowning the known unknowns:
"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know."
As a developer, I can live with the known unknowns - it's the unknown unknowns which scare me!
To be passionate about programming and just be a programmer who gets things done is not the same thing.
If you just love to learn new stuff, read blogs, follow other programmers on Twitter - Great!
Yes, there are people who think of this extra knowledge as if it was some extra work or even waste of time. Anyway they will learn as needed, not just for the knowledge's sake. Not everyone is a programmer 24/7. Most people have something else to do or take care of :)
Jeff Atwood made a great summary in his post Mort, Elvis, Einstein, and You.