Measuring developer quality is indeed a hard problem, but I predict it will be solved before too long. Good programmers are a massively undervalued resource.

Measuring developer quality is indeed a hard problem, but I predict it will be solved before too long. Good programmers are a massively undervalued resource. A company that could effectively measure developer value would be able to pay strong developers more while paying weaker developers less. This would allow them get much more value from their salary costs and would give them a huge advantage over the competition. I think a lot of people realize this, so it's only a matter of time before we start seeing solutions.