Agreed. If I were hiring someone a super high SO score might put me off - especially if they pushed that as a good thing about them.

Should we apply the same thinking to blogging? Are competent programmers too busy programming write blog posts?

I've found that when I'm working on something really cool, I tend to go relatively dark on the Internet too, and there's an inverse correlation between my comments and my productivity. In other words, when I talk I don't know what I'm talking about, and when I know what I'm talking about, I don't talk. ;-) But I cycle through doing/talking phases several times a year, so I'm continually refreshing my experience. Someone who's been doing nothing but blogging for 3-4 years (which seems to be the time it takes to build a major audience) is probably pretty rusty technically, which makes their advice suspect.

This is really presumptuous, and makes a leap from correlative to causal on the back of a couple of blanket assumptions.

The first is that there are better things to do than blog: based on what? If someone feels the itch to write about something they really care about, and doesn't want to bother with more formal methods of publication, I think that blogging is one of the best things they can do with their time. It is not like they are producing nothing; they are producing something that will -- hopefully -- propagate ideas and critical thinking. This sounds like a very good thing. Not all problems that are looking for an answer will have that answer found in a block of code; sometimes the wetware needs to be refactored.

The second is that people who blog more than infrequently are apt to be technically rusty, and should be subject of suspicion. This make me suspicious of those who would assert that. Again, based on what assumption? I agree with the claim that if they blog more they have less time for other things besides blogging; rollover minutes only work on some cellphones. But to claim that because they blog more they know less; this is quite an extraordinary claim. It wants to lump everyone who blogs a lot in with the blowhards. What if someone has a lot to say, and thinks it is important to get those ideas out? It sounds like you would tell that person to shut up and get back to work. I worry about the consequences of this.

Think of programming ability as a pyramid. There're a vast amount of programmers that show up at work, put in their 8 hours, and never really think about what they're doing. These people generally don't read or write blogs. Then there're the people that are passionately involved in their craft. They blog. Then there're the people at the very top of the field - the Guy Steeles, Rob Pikes, Jeff Deans, etc. They usually don't blog, because they put all their concentration into their code, and when they take a break, they do things like photography or swing dancing that take them completely away from programming so they can recharge.

The interesting thing about this distribution is that the average blogger is a better programmer than the average non-blogger, but the average great programmer does not blog.

FWIW, I consider myself a good programmer, but not a great programmer. And I've suspected for a couple years that the reason I'm not a great programmer is because I talk too much and code too little. So I dunno if I'd tell the general blogger to shut up and get back to work, but I certainly tell myself to shut up and get back to work, usually with lukewarm results.

It's ironic - I feel exactly the opposite of the above poster. I just find it too easy to slip back into programming, instead of blogging about my work or spending the time to open-source any of my projects. I wish I was blogging more (or at all, for that matter).

Additionally if someone promoted themselves as "I have X score on SO" it would worry me.

(that's also before we discuss whether the ability to answer questions well on SO marks you as a good programmer or not :))

You have stated this twice, but the reason why this should invoke worry seems to have been left as an exercise to the reader. Perhaps there is some sort of underlying assumption you make about someone pimping their SO score that I am not making?

Help me understand why this should worry me. There are plenty of good questions and good discussion that I've seen on SO, and the reputation people have earned has seem more often deserved than not. I don't think a good SO reputation deserving quite the heated bandwagon snarking this article produced.

Secondly it would set alarm bells: why are they so excited about their SO score? Is it intended to impress me so that I skim over the rest? (it's not the only flag I've noticed in interviews; there are lots of similar ones, you pick them up). [it'd also worry me that they haven't figured out it's not a great metric]

So what I am saying is: having a good SO score is definitely something great to mention to me. But only in passing or I would get suspicious :)

(on the other hand if I were hiring, say, an API community manager then it's an awesome metric! :) so I guess it depends)