A really interesting and true post today by Scott Hanselman as he explains what Dark Matter Developers are and how a large percentage of developers can be classified this way:

My coworker Damian Edwards and I hypothesize that there is another kind of developer than the ones we meet all the time. We call them Dark Matter Developers. They don’t read a lot of blogs, they never write blogs, they don’t go to user groups, they don’t tweet or facebook, and you you don’t often see them at large conferences. Where are these dark matter developers online?

Scott points out where he thinks these developers are:

Where are the dark matter developers? Probably getting work done. Maybe using ASP.NET 1.1 at a local municipality or small office. Maybe working at a bottling plant in Mexico in VB6. Perhaps they are writing PHP calendar applications at a large chip manufacturer.*

Personally, I know quite a few of these developers and I prod them to not be so introverted, get out to meet ups, blog or at least join and use Twitter. ?Maybe these folks have it right, maybe we should just get things done and spend the rest of the time focused on things that are more important to us. ?I think they could be right, we spend our time on things we are passionate about, we work because we have to?we need to provide for our families.

To me, the difference between the Dark Matter Developers and those like Scott, is the passion. ?Not everyone is passionate about the work they do, the work on and move on to things they like better. ?I have been passionate about computers for as long as I can remember, devouring technology in every waking hour because it fascinates me. ?I believe this is what separates these two distinct types of developers.

I am a Dark Matter Home Owner. ?I hate doing maintenance around the house; lawn mowing, raking, building and painting. ?I have better things to do with my time and fixing a leaky gutter is not it. ?I would rather read a book on algorithms and pay someone to mow my lawn..that’s just I roll.