Unfortunately the article, as written, seems to promise much more
Well, I'll be sure to make the next version better. :-) This was posted 18 months ago (and it's the third time it makes the front page of HN).
We disagree on what (if anything) can be done without a competent programmer in the loop somewhere
I think these indicators can at least be used to whittle down the technical people that a business person knows down to a shortlist that is more likely to be good (rather than just have fancy titles). I'll grant you that the list can be improved, but I can't agree that the list is useless.
Fair Enough :-). As I said earlier, I think your intent (of finding these or potentially better indicators) is a noble one. I am not convinced of the efficiacy of such indicators in practice, when weilded by a business guy with no programming experience. But hey, I could be wrong and you could be right ! I'll be glad to change my viewpoint if I see this approach work in a consistent fashion!
That's kind of like the "hidden project" criteria, except public. Back when I wrote this article, I was only just starting to get to grips with the open source community (after using its products for a long time).
I think phrased as "has released things publicly", it's a bit too restrictive, because some people will be excellent programmers but just not have gotten into the whole open source community thing.
That said, from the point of view of helping narrow it down for someone who doesn't know programming much, then yes - if a programmer has released public libraries/applications that are in use, that's a great form of "extra-curricular" not-so-hidden project, so it could well be used as an additional indicator.
Well, I'll be sure to make the next version better. :-) This was posted 18 months ago (and it's the third time it makes the front page of HN).
We disagree on what (if anything) can be done without a competent programmer in the loop somewhere
I think these indicators can at least be used to whittle down the technical people that a business person knows down to a shortlist that is more likely to be good (rather than just have fancy titles). I'll grant you that the list can be improved, but I can't agree that the list is useless.