Hmmm, very thought provoking subject matter... and very timely too.

I heard from an old co-worker a few weeks ago asking me if I knew any good FoxPro guys who might be available. I chuckled and said "No, but I'll take the job for the right money..." He said they had hired two different programmers who claimed to know FoxPro and in both cases, they hired the guys and found out they were spending most of their time on Google looking for FoxPro answers/education. Both were let go rather quickly.

He said they even altered their posting for the job so that it states "Must know FoxPro without the use of Google"!

I don't think identifying famous programmers is any kind of litmus test, let alone any indication of the kind of quality one might get from a developer (or not), but I do think there has to be some sort of litmus test and this applies especially to SQL Server.

In my career I think I have interviewed probably 25 to 50 "DBAs" who were not (at least in my book) DBAs at all. I've interviewed people who worked at small companies doing little more than backups and yet presumed they were a DBA. I interviewed a few people who could write stored procedures but have never worked with SSIS or SSRS - and yet considered themselves DBAs.

Litmus tests are good to separate valid candidates from 'self-defined' candidates, but I would not consider naming authors to be any kind of helpful or valid litmus test. Better to check actual working knowledge than casual secondary knowledge.