How to choose programmers?

[Sparkyshires]

On the "if interested, join." aspect, my team had an issue with that last year. We had about 8 people interested in the "romantic" esque aspect of programming, as in they wanted to become like super hackers or something. However, come build season,after teaching them all the way from September 1 to January 1, we had on average maybe three for the first three weeks, and then we were lucky to have one or two of the original 8 every night. I'm also trying to find a way for our team to find new programmers, that are capable and willing to come.

[dash121]

I think the idea of a "patience game" is perfect for at least the text based languages. I think that would be the best way to do it by far! Thanks so much from all of you!