TL;DR - they're smart and their whole world outside of work revolves around their profession and they've been doing it their whole lives.
You could write a "How to recognize a good [X]" article about almost any profession if that's your thesis.
Let's face it, the vast majority of work programming isn't that hard. A lot of programmers, perhaps especially the good and smart ones, might rationally realize that having a life outside of work--in other words, working a 9-5--often makes more rational sense than putting all of one's considerable intellectual energy into writing yet another CRUD (or whatever application du jour one normally writes) remix.
I think there's a good point in your comment but I think you have buried it in unnecessary insults and mischaracterizations of the article.
For all of the great devs I know and have known programming is very much a passion for them, and they will engage that passion outside of work. But this doesn't mean their job is their life or that they don't maintain a healthy work/life balance. Indeed, working on projects they're passionate about outside of work can often provide a release from toiling with a brain-dead code base at work.
Also, the vast majority of software development may not be hard, but perhaps that's because the vast majority of developers aren't that good. The work being done by the best devs is orders of magnitude better (and more challenging) than the work being done by the daily-wtf generating paycheck programmers in the enterprise trenches.
You could write a "How to recognize a good [X]" article about almost any profession if that's your thesis.
Let's face it, the vast majority of work programming isn't that hard. A lot of programmers, perhaps especially the good and smart ones, might rationally realize that having a life outside of work--in other words, working a 9-5--often makes more rational sense than putting all of one's considerable intellectual energy into writing yet another CRUD (or whatever application du jour one normally writes) remix.