If you don't know that your problem requires programming, and you put out an ad for a 'problem solver', the chance that you'll actually hire someone who knows programming, and recognizes that the best way to solve the particular program is programming, are slim to none.

Granted you could define a good problem solver as one who could easily learn how to program if necessary, but I think it takes a lot longer to be become a great programmer than it does to learn another language once you are one.

For a development position you need two pieces of CRITICAL mental capabilities:

1) Problem solving: How you approach problems.

2) Coding skill: How you implement the solutions given in (1).

If you don't have 2, you suck. 2 is not limited to a language.

HOWEVER knowing the nitty gritty details of a language is actually very critical often. Imagine you never worked on ruby before, heard of Rails, read a book, made a hello world program, thats that. You are a good programmer. Now you apply for a job where you are expected to make an RoR application that will serve a minimum of 1 million hits per hour (they are solving the scaling problem). You got to make the code clusterable and efficient since in this case buying 100 servers is out of the question (lack of funds). Sorry you are going to need more than a ruby newbie for this one.

Now I am in no way implying that a good developer can't write an amazing ruby program having never touched ruby before, quite the contrary. That developer just might not be able to start as a senior ruby developer. Probably give that person 1 year with ruby and you got yourself a guru. But you need some minimums.

I guess what some people don't realize when hiring is that don't expect miracles from someone until approximately 1 yr after employment. That is when they understand the system, frameworks the system uses, the development strategy, problems, etc. This is when you start to see a good developer make amazing contributions. If you are hiring now because you need something shipped in 2 months, you have wrong reasons a person who knows the frameworks is going to have a better start, but its not a solution.