bjclark

I have noticed, in the last year, that almost everyone in my programing circle of friends and acquaintances (mostly ruby people) have become very focused and aware of self-promotion, to the point that numerous times I hear people say "[That guy] is just really good at self promotion" (usually as a thinly veiled put down).

I used to believe that most programming and open source communities were meritocracies, but it sounds like the people I'm around don't believe that anymore.

When did this start? Where did it come from? Is this unique to the Ruby community or are others saying that?

I was using echofon today when I noticed this "ad" from 140proof in my stream.

Screenshot here: http://skitch.com/robotdeathsquad/detjm/echofon

It looks like it's representing itself as a @newsycombinator tweet, but links to a MaximumPC article that doesn't seem to be on the front page of news.ycombinator.com.

What's up with that?