> Actually, a lot of programmers are famous for what they've created (code reasons). Think Linus Torvalds, Guido van Rossum, Larry Wall, etc.
Not at all: "Let's try an experiment. Think of a project you use all day. [...] Now, name 4 people on the core team without looking them up." Can you name 4 people on Linux, Perl, etc. core teams? I'd bet you can't. Or do we think that Torvalds, Wall, etc. wrote the software they are famous for on their own? That's what Zed is talking about.
I was responding to the poster I responded to, not Zed's post. Specifically, I think most famous programmers (at least among other programmers) are famous for what they coded.
That said, I can actually name 4 core contributers to Linux although I'm not sure what the significance of that might be (Linus, Ted T'so, David Miller, Andrew Morton).
People skills? I didn't get into Linux until much latter but from what I understand Linux as written by Linus wasn't that great. It was submissions and work by people better than himself that made Linux what it is today. His ability to code may have grown since then but his super wonder coding powers aren't what got Linux off the ground.
To be honest, Zed Shaw seems to be the exception since he's almost certainly more well known for blogging than any code that he's written.