It seems like this example helps highlight the absurdity of requiring experience in $Language for $Years (or other similar too-constrained metrics) when an Able Programmer can just learn that stuff. The general populace views what we do as magic, but understands being able to drive very well. This effectively says that programming is a general skill, and that a good programmer should be able to learn it if they already know something similar. So, your Visual Studio 2012-only shop can hire people w/ 15 years of embedded C experience, and probably get a pretty solid programmer.

We all seem to consider this as true about being a Good Programmer ("Sure, I can learn $language_that_you_use"), but are frustrated by HR departments who don't realize it.

Analogies, if constructed carefully, have a limited use in explaining concepts. The more closely the analogized items resemble each-other, the longer you can hold onto the analogy. To really understand something, you can't be using analogies.

This analogy can hold together for half a sentence at most. The concerns involved in hiring a programmer and selecting a customer to rent cars to have almost nothing in common.

And if you want to use an analogy in an argument, you first have to argue that the analogy is valid.

Articles like this contribute nothing to my understanding of hiring.

I take it you mean "hackers are particularly good at arguing the analogy to an absurd extent"

(This being an example of course)