One of my favourite questions when interviewing - and it was 100% reliable :-) - "what are your hobbies?"
If the answer included programming then they were hired, if not, then they went to the "B" list. In my experience, anybody who is really interested in programming will have it as a hobby (and is keen to learn even if they don't currently have the knowledge you require) - otherwise it is "just a job". Every job has a learning curve - whether it is just the particular domain or even a new language, the individual who sees programming as more "than a job" will come up to speed much faster and be more productive in both the short and long term. Every programmer I have ever hired using this criteria worked out well. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
