BS. Programmers come in all sizes.
Yep. Some are in transition from "too skinny" to "too fat".
There is some data to back up this fattening-over-time thesis: http://imgur.com/OjWoz
There are way too many variables for that to imply "programmers get fatter over time."
1) Maybe t-shirts sizes themselves are not the same between 1999 and 2008 2) Maybe the average age of the attender has not changed, so there's really no age component 3) Maybe a different demographic is now attending the conference 4) Maybe all Americans are fatter on average and programmers are just part of that trend
Re:Why T-shirts matter at tech companies
by nopassrecover on Saturday April 09, 2011 @04:53AM
(#2426805)
Interesting data point, but it doesn't support the thesis that programmers get fatter the more they've programmed unless you can show the attendees at the Linux symposium are older/more experienced now than in the past.
You'd probably also want some external data as I'm pretty sure people as a whole are getting fatter.
It's different if you are buying shirts as schwag. I once worked for a startup where the t-shirts were more popular than the product and the most important sizes were mens and womens size medium.