There's a technology with pure saturation and you want to throw that away. Terrible idea. Embrace PHP to gain the saturation you could never hope to get on your own. PHP runs on ALL servers. Who can replicate that? If Java, Python, Ruby, and .NET can all fail to achieve the same ubiquity, what chance do any of us have? Replace "PHP" with "JavaScript" in your article -- it's the same problems. Only choice for a language for its scope, terrible design decisions, yadda yadda. Yet the entire modern online experience is based on it. How have we coped and even thrived with JS? One solution is by embracing it as the backbone to make better libraries as was done with jQuery. Now we have an awesome library that runs on all browsers.

I hate how snarky this is going to sound but: is this the new direction of your blog or just a temporary diversion? The last 2 posts have been the kind of pop-psychology articles I can find anywhere. I've been following this blog for ~6 years for your tech insight. If this new direction is temporary, I'll stick around. If it's here to stay, it's not the feed I signed up for.

This is a great 1st step but it's pretty infuriating that you use "hacker proof" to describe it. This does nothing to prevent 2 of the major methods of getting compromised: man in the middle attacks and malware. Man in the middle: I fall for a phishing scam and I enter my user+pw. Google SMS.s me a code which I also give to the MitM. No protection. Malware: instead of prompting me for action like MitM, it waits for me to get around to logging in and piggy-backs off of my legit session. No protection. I'm not calling 2-factor authentication useless, but it is NOT "hacker proof." Don't take my word for it. Security god Bruce Schneier wrote about this 7 years ago and has brought it up often ever since: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/03/the_failure_of.html

I'm glad this works for you and it works for the unmarried prospective employee, but what about the rest of us? I don't have time to code as a hobby anymore. And I have a family situation that requires me to have actual insurance so I don't do contracting and would never agree to your week long contracting gig and a hiring process that looks to take another week or 2 beyond that. Regarding your "pitch" idea: really? Just ...really? You're picking the best introverted programmer based on a high-pressure sales pitch? I love so many of your posts but it's hard for me to even read this one.

It sounds like you need something like this: This link http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/04/30/if-you-code-html-zen-coding-will-change-your-life/ was featured on reddit raving about Zen Coding ( http://code.google.com/p/zen-coding/ ). Of particular interest to you: it features full support on Visual Studio.

Jeff... you're back! I hate to say it but I can't think of a really good coding article you've written in a while -- however, this one is right back at your peak. Articles like these are why I first started following your blog. Thanks for the post. I look forward to more like this. Very well put. You addressed my concerns with LINQ and came to conclusions that make a lot of sense.