[nocman]

> presuming to be able to identify "the best programmers"

He was identifying the best programmers he knows (as is obvious from the title). I don't think it is unreasonable at all for even a semi-technical person to be able to do that.

Also, it is highly likely that the author never expected their article to receive a high volume of web traffic, and allocated resources to it with that assumption. That doesn't say a thing about their technical abilities. You could be the best programmer in the world and make an incorrect assumption like that.