You're arguing for my point, not against it. Writing code isn't the only thing that a programmer needs to do. Considering that, having life/work/team experience

You're arguing for my point, not against it. Writing code isn't the only thing that a programmer needs to do. Considering that, having life/work/team experience outside of the IT sector is very valuable. The fact that my friend is skilled in Ruby/Rails was but a small part of why she could run circles around many seasoned developers. Granted, I zeroed in on the experience point because it particularly boiled my blood and you responded directly to that hang up I had. However, my larger, more nuanced view of why this algorithm is bad definitely agrees with your point :)