You are insulted by the idea of programming puzzles in an interview situation. That's fair enough by me. But then you go on to say this:

> I also happen to hire and if the candidate does not have an open source project I give them a meaningful challenge (add value to the community) and tell them to create a github acct and share a link to the repo. At least by the end of the process they have something to walk away with

Could you be any more silly and condescending? Right back at you: Unless your nickname is a literal and accurate description of your programming abilities, I will take a bet of dollars to donuts that every programmer in my office has more raw coding acumen than you. But guess what? None of them has a GitHub account and that is unlikely to change. Neither do most of the other top-tier programmers I know. One of my coworkers has put out numerous public domain libraries (http://nothings.org), most of them developed on RAD's dime, but he'd probably be appalled to be considered a member of your "community".

I actually have an old, effectively defunct GitHub account that I continue paying $8/month for because I like what those guys are doing. The problem isn't GitHub. GitHub is great. The problem is you, and people like you.

Don't be a GitHub Douche.

First off, I don't understand where your rage is coming from. My point is that if you contribute to open source then your coding ability is clearly demonstrated in those projects. I'd rather spend my mental powers on coding something that others could use afterwards then a stupid code challenge that will just be rm -rf after the interviewer reviews it.

None of them has a GitHub account and that is unlikely to change

I'm surprised your so proud that your team will never have a free account on the largest repository of open source. Regardless if you contribute, why wouldn't you take advantage of FOSS instead of re-creating the wheel.

I will take a bet of dollars to donuts that every programmer in my office has more raw coding acumen than you

Thats a rather baseless statement. What would you know about my ability to code or not to code. On the other hand, your team's apparent anti-open-source position (based on above comment) seems to indicate they are not as awesome as you describe.

The problem is you, and people like you

You mean people that are passionate enough about programming to voluntarily write code on evenings and weekend and share it for the broader community of developers for the sole purpose of being proud of something you create and sharing it so others can benefit? I'd be happy if there were more problems like me

dont be a github douce

Honestly I don't care if you use github, bitbucket, codeplex, or your blog

You think I'm enraged? I'm sitting here chuckling and shaking my head in bemusement at you.

> I'm surprised your so proud that your team will never have a free account on the largest repository of open source.

I'm not proud of it. When I say it's unlikely to change, I'm making a considered prediction. Don't confuse 'is' and ought'.

> Thats a rather baseless statement. What would you know about my ability to code or not to code.

It's not baseless. It's Bayesian statistics. They are enough sigmas above the mean that I feel comfortable making that bet. If you were to reveal your identity and it turned out you were, say, Guido van Rossom, I might lose the bet and have to update my prior.

> You mean people that are passionate enough about programming to voluntarily write code on evenings and weekend and share it for the broader community of developers

Nah, I mean people who assume anyone who isn't exactly like them must be a second-rate human being or at least a second-rate member of their profession. This is the same personality flaw that turns enthusiastic, inveterate puzzle solvers into the kind of puzzle-mad interviewers you seem to hate with a vengeance. Isn't it nice to find out you have something in common?