I believe the dichotomy between Jeff's post and the various comments/blogs is partly reconciled by keeping in mind two things. 1. Job candidates break down into: a. People for whom programming is just a job. b. People for whom programming is a career. c. Contractors. A career programmer will have a portfolio, will play with open source projects, will study programming in their off hours and constantly improve themselves. A job programmer codes during core hours and that's it. A contractor might be either. 2. As the hiring party, keep in mind what kind of programmer you need. E.g. if you are an enterprise, a hardware company, a services company, or a manager that thinks programmers are interchangeable, then don't follow Jeff's suggestions. You are looking for a job programmer, not a career programmer. Following Jeff's ideas will annoy your candidates, the interviewing staffers, and HR. If you are a hiring for a company that writes software for a living (the product is the software), and/or an entrepreneur company, than the suggestions here work: you are looking for a life partner, not a jobber. The interviewer(s) will be working closely with the interviewee for a long time and must have a high confidence level that there is a fit. For contractors, no matter what your company, the suggestions are overkill. You want someone that a. Can do the job; b. Is not an asshole. You need to pass/fail a contractor with a single interview and get them on board ASAP. They'd better be gone in 6 months, this isn't a lifetime commitment.