Given that it's Wikipedia, it's more of a random sample of programmers who have got enough media attention to avoid deletion.
Though to be fair, the deletionists generally trust that the the community of editors who write articles about programming-related topics can self-regulate their topic area. Of 337 names currently on the list, only 16 have been subject to deletion attempts: Doug Bell, Brad Cox, Hugh Daniel, Andrew Gower, Paul Gower, Dave Hyatt, Dan Ingalls, Rod Johnson, Mark Overmars, Jacek Sieka, Mike Shaver, Audrey Tang, Simon Tatham, Andrew Welch, and Dave Winer. (Okay, technically someone tried to delete the Bill Gates article too, but that was clearly a joke). Plus they tried deleting the list itself too.
(To be honest, I myself only recognised about three of those names: Audrey Tang, Dan Ingalls, and Simon Tatham. The rest of them I had to look up ... in Wikipedia.)
Though to be fair, the deletionists generally trust that the the community of editors who write articles about programming-related topics can self-regulate their topic area. Of 337 names currently on the list, only 16 have been subject to deletion attempts: Doug Bell, Brad Cox, Hugh Daniel, Andrew Gower, Paul Gower, Dave Hyatt, Dan Ingalls, Rod Johnson, Mark Overmars, Jacek Sieka, Mike Shaver, Audrey Tang, Simon Tatham, Andrew Welch, and Dave Winer. (Okay, technically someone tried to delete the Bill Gates article too, but that was clearly a joke). Plus they tried deleting the list itself too.
(To be honest, I myself only recognised about three of those names: Audrey Tang, Dan Ingalls, and Simon Tatham. The rest of them I had to look up ... in Wikipedia.)