--- title: "Of software legends, myths and proportions" url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2004/5/20/of-software-legends-myths-and-proportions.md" canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2004/5/20/of-software-legends-myths-and-proportions.html" published: "2004-05-20T13:43:00" updated: "2004-05-20T13:43:00" tags: ["Blogging"] author: "Roy Osherove" description: "Is it just me or is the popularity contest getting a little out of hand? http://www.hanselman.com/blog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=dab2db7b-2ca6-45a3-a879-d7c354b98c9c You'll want to stop by and see if you have the intellectual…" usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)." license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" --- # Of software legends, myths and proportions By Roy Osherove May 20, 2004 In [Blogging](https://osherove.com/blog/category/blogging) **Historical article** · Originally published May 20, 2004; technical details may be outdated. Is it just me or is the popularity contest getting a little out of hand? [http://www.hanselman.com/blog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=dab2db7b-2ca6-45a3-a879-d7c354b98c9c](http://www.hanselman.com/blog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=dab2db7b-2ca6-45a3-a879-d7c354b98c9c) _You'll want to stop by and see if you have the intellectual horsepower it takes to be the **Apprentice.NET**!  The Winner will receive a ticket to the EXCLUSIVE INVITE ONLY **.NET Influencer's Dinner** and rub elbows with various .NET Illuminati.  Truly a lifetime chance, and only possible to those with chops enough to be the Apprentice.NET._  _For those of you who are more 'Survivor'-brute-force-scavenger-hunt types ;) don't worry, we'll have **RD Bingo** for you to play.  You'll have a card with the faces of Bloggers and RDs that you know and love.  Get that individual to initial over their face.  Getting Bingo (or Blackout Bingo) wins prizes (plus it forces you anti-social bastards to network!)_ Sure, I know some of this is tongue in cheek sorta thing, but still. When did Bloggers become rock stars to win dinners with? “.Net Influencers“? hmm... I know these are all great people but C'mon! just wear the “_I'm a Legend, worship me._” T-shirt and be done with it already. Do we really want to cultivate the cult of the worshiping masses? In the last year I've seen Bloggers become celebrities, celebrities become legends, and I've seen legends become myths. We need to remember (and especially those who are at the helm) who we are and what we are here to do. We should not get all full of ourselves creating contests for people to meet us. We should just _meet_ them. We should not be handing out autographs, but software, tips, tricks and code. Oh and gadgets. I have to say that yes, I'd love to meet with each and every one of the “cool bunch” but I would feel really awkward trying to win their grace through a contest. What's next? A Don Box coffee mug? wasn't the “software legends” thing enough? Isn't this all getting a little out of proportion? ## More in Blogging [All posts in Blogging](https://osherove.com/blog/category/blogging) - May 20, 2004 ### [Blog like nobody's reading](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/5/20/blog-like-nobodys-reading.html) - May 20, 2004 ### [My secret agenda](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/5/20/my-secret-agenda.html) - May 9, 2004 ### [Great blog about Smart Documents and Office 2003 .Net intergration](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/5/9/great-blog-about-smart-documents-and-office-2003-net-intergr.html) - May 9, 2004 ### [The first Israeli Blogger dinner was really good](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/5/9/the-first-israeli-blogger-dinner-was-really-good.html) --- ## About the author **Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery. ### Sites - [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership. - [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts. - [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin. - [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model. - [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps. - [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes). ### Social - X: https://x.com/royosherove - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/ ### Contact - Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7 ### License Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/