I get what you're saying. To me, this reads like someone who takes pride in forming assumptions (and biases) about a team before speaking to any of its members. A fun game for them, perhaps, but less fun for the folks they are trying to pigeonhole.

I guess there's a fine line between collecting information to have a productive, data-driven conversation, and doing it to avoid having a conversation entirely.

Also seems like they're more interested in connecting with the boss than the developers themselves, which is probably something you need to do as a contractor, but yeah, it does alienate other developers.

Not sure why, seems just like useful advice. It sounds like the author does contracting of some sort, so having tools to quickly orient around a new codebase makes a lot of sense.

I assure you that it's a them thing

Why on earth would this stress you out?

ha, its all how is the team performing and who can be fired or something. when I look at a repo its more what is this thing.