Sure, I have no status, and I have no demands. What I like to do is to distinguish between people who can program and people who just can talk, to form my opinion on what I'm reading. Words are cheap.
Words are cheap if you quote someone else. Probably as you are doing Linus here. Not when they come from genuine experience of being in the wild. I think, we with a fair bit of experience can make a good judgment when we hear someone who doesn’t really knows what he’s saying.
Rest assured these guys here: http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders wouldn’t be there if they could not code. Most of them have detailed profiles for you to check out first, instead of asking them ‘show me the code’ on their every comment on HN.
