I've often wished for a similar marketplace, but more for consulting, than actual programming. When starting out with a new language or new technology (particularly unpopular ones, that don't have good online resources) it would be worth paying an "expert" for an hour or two of their time to ask questions.
Minutebox is trying to do something like that but their focus is not on programming at the moment.
rent-a-coder, elance, a ton...
I'm talking about quick jobs. Can you hire someone to help you with some Clojure or Ruby code just for an hour? It looks like it takes an hour just to post a job on elance.
I'm curious about what kind of programming gigs you could confidently have completed in an hour?
same here, that's why I recommended those sites.. I'm not sure who could reasonably expect a programming task to be done in 1 hour... for those so-called "emergencies" or critical tasks, you can't hire someone who has NO idea what the project entails, you need an expert who has worked on it before.