When you say "having to do training".. A great programmer don't need "you" to do the training. Just give him/her a couple of days to read your codebase and lear

When you say "having to do training".. A great programmer don't need "you" to do the training. Just give him/her a couple of days to read your codebase and learn the language. Anyway, even if it was the best PHP programmer, you'd still have to walk through your architecture and important design decision. So, at this high level, it's not important at all whether the guy/girl understand the inner details of PHP. And, might I add, PHP is so easy to understand and read.. You don't even have to know PHP to read the majority of code written in it ;-) Compare that to, say, haskell or scheme, where it's a whole new paradigm. This is a crucial blunder from all no-tech people I know who are trying to hire great programmers. Seek Great Programmers, not Great "insert a language" Programmer! A good programmer will be good in any languages; a bad one will be bad in all languages.