As the saying goes, programming is not a what, but a how. Hackers don't get passionate about the act of coding any more than carpenters get passionate about driving nails.
And also, just like carpenters, the tools they use.
I'm interested in programming as a tool to give myself a clearer mental model of language, mathematics, computation, and thought, and I'm interested in writing and reading code that I find artistically aesthetic and elegant.
(Then again, I wouldn't call myself a 'hacker'. I think 'hacker' implies a large degree of making-cool-stuffmanship.)
Which isn't to say they aren't interested in technique. After all, carpenters still like to geek out over tools once in awhile . . .
[edit: well, wikipedia has a whole pile of different things listed under carpentry, so perhaps i remember wrong, or this was a local thing (my grandfather was an odd-job man in leeds, uk)]
[edit2: ah, perhaps the distinction was between carpenters and joiners, which is explained here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joiner - and is a uk-only thing. certainly "joiner" is a word i remember, but that you don't hear any more...]