Real life is all about trade-offs. "Slow" and "expensive" is not an option if you want ot be competitive, and others can do it fast and cheap. If all you have to go on is smoke, then learn to recognise different kinds of smoke is pretty handy.

In hindsight, more than a year after writing this article, I would say that this list might be most useful for the business guy to recognise someone who will help him hire good programmers, rather than as a direct hiring tool.

My worst hire was a java guy that I took a gamble on because we were short staff and could have used some help with mobile stuff. He was fired within two weeks, so I totally understand where this guy is coming from. I've also done interviews where I've asked candidates why they became interested in programming and they replied, "I don't really like computers, I just do this for the money." One guy actually said exactly that.

When 95% of the people you see coming through the door are like this I could see a non-programmer not being in a position to figure out that these people simply aren't worth hiring.... the solution I don't see addressed is more rapid and iterative trial and error in the development hiring process: bringing people on in a limited capacity or throwing them at smaller and contained technical projects before giving them responsibility for more important stuff. I'm a big fan of finding good people for part-time work and then growing them into full time positions if the business model starts supporting it and they want more work. This has worked well for non-programming stuff too.

I don't 'just do this for money' but an employer that explicitly requires passion and 'not doing it for money' looks like trying to get off paying less and have me working for 'the big idea'.