Derek's post is one of the best to date about hiring programmers for short projects or outsourcing purposes. I still believe the best way to hire tech talent is

Derek's post is one of the best to date about hiring programmers for short projects or outsourcing purposes. I still believe the best way to hire tech talent is to develop relationships as you'll have to trust the guy with your product and IP. Meet people at ruby-python-whatever user groups, find people you could comfortably live with and then try to work together on something.