This has not been my experience. Part of it may be that I don't really do the whole "self-promotion" thing so well.

I'm pretty good at what I do. I have worked with many, many people that are much better than I am, so I don't let it get to my head.

But whenever I mention what I'm good at, it's met with snorts of disbelief. That's crazy. I am not claiming to be Superman.

I have a massive portfolio that proves what I claim. It has 30 or more (complete, documented, tested, and supported) repos, with over a decade of checkin history, and full source for a whole boatload of [mostly deprecated] shipping applications. Don't believe me? Clone the repo, and hit "Build." I have dozens of blog entries, articles, teaching series, etc.; all linked from my SO story. I even have the PDF manual for my very first engineering project, in 1987.

What I can (and can't) do is not a matter for debate. Like I said, I have worked with many folks that make me look like a piker.

Here's an example:

About a month and a half ago, I responded to an article, where the author claimed we "never finished" anything. This was what I posted:

>> I dare you to list three finished software projects.

> I can probably list 30, and point to the repos.

It's 100% true. You don't need to take my word for it. Simply look at my SO story. I link to it in my HN handle.

Someone that obviously did not bother to do exactly that, posted a challenge, basically calling me a liar. I responded by throwing the seed into the nest, and posting a link to my SO story[0]. They never responded, after that.

Like I said, I know that I'm pretty good at what I do, but I spent my entire career around folks that made me look like a beginner.

It's really, really sad that people seem to consider that kind of stuff to be a lie.

[0] https://stackoverflow.com/story/chrismarshall