Interesting point. I wouldn't call it desperation; I think it's more of an interesting experiment. If you read Kent's blog, it sounds like he's exploring differ

Interesting point. I wouldn't call it desperation; I think it's more of an interesting experiment. If you read Kent's blog, it sounds like he's exploring different ways that programmers can monetize their work. This is certainly one way for a very capable programmer; I can't even imagine how much I'd learn spending two hours coding with, say, John Carmack (or even Kent Beck :^). I could easily see spending a few hundred dollars for that. I could also see this being a good way for a programmer to make money who isn't necessarily a rock star, but has deep knowledge of a particular library or some such. I once had to write a GUI in C#, and after working on it for a couple months I would have paid a few hundred dollars to spend four hours with someone who could have answered all of my arcane questions in one fell swoop.