That goes for me too. In fact, you could flip the advice: if you're such a great and experienced programmer looking for work, why have you spent so much time be

That goes for me too. In fact, you could flip the advice: if you're such a great and experienced programmer looking for work, why have you spent so much time being paid well to do commercial work? Why have you not spent your time working for your employer and resting outside of work? When I've spoken to (good) recruiters, they've downplayed the whole github/blog thing. We might use that (they say), but it will depend very much on the job we're going for. Usually once I talk to a techie for a while they get a pretty good idea of what I'm about technically (and vice versa). If they're not a techie, then github/blog will be of only limited use.