I was just pointed to this article thanks to the blog of Kris Buytaert. The author writes about his experiences on how to recognize a good programmer as a recruitment person.
As I still am unqualified myself (no degree yet, maybe I won’t ever get one) the article was a relief to read, as in some of the things he mentions I could recognize myself. Hopefully lots of HR people read it too 
Some excerpts of particular interest, and my opinion on them (all blockquotes © inter-sections.net):
Update: article blog seems to be down, see the comments for a Google cache link.
