This conversation seems to be entirely missing the point of the original article. The programmer to be in question is working at a .Net shop and needs to be able to get up to speed in a timely manner. It addresses a particular person in a specific instance.
Really he needs to understand what object oriented is, variables, arrays, loops, conditionals, debugging and the actual .NET syntax. Understanding these thing the person will be able to do their job. That seems to be the most important thing. Certainly you may not consider the person a "real" programmer but, it is up to him to fill out the rest of his knowledge and grow as a programmer.
The "top" answer sounds suspiciously like today's XKCD
Really he needs to understand what object oriented is, variables, arrays, loops, conditionals, debugging and the actual .NET syntax. Understanding these thing the person will be able to do their job. That seems to be the most important thing. Certainly you may not consider the person a "real" programmer but, it is up to him to fill out the rest of his knowledge and grow as a programmer.
The "top" answer sounds suspiciously like today's XKCD