Other people have a career in connecting people together, or writing criticism of things other people have built, or writing documentation or other kinds of exposition, or interviewing, or doing investigative reporting, or editing, or building communities, or ...

John Gruber does not sell himself as a programmer or computer scientist or technical wunderkind. He was able to cobble together a little ad-hoc specification and perl script (markdown) that works for him, and many other people like it (because it’s great at what it does!), but I have never heard him introduce himself as “hi, I’m the brilliant inventor of markdown, that technical masterwork”, or whatever.

He has made his career in writing, which in his case is some mix of criticism, journalism, and surfacing interesting stuff from around the web. He’s quite good at his job, which is why many people read his blog.

Hate when people diss ones educational or working background to make a point.

Scoble did a horrific thing at the Foo Camp and who knows at other times and that should be the focus.

he took the idea from dean allen, who had created "textile" (which was featured in the movabletype blogging-system gruber used).

gruber reworked that idea slightly, then released it with a catchy name, and somehow received all the credit.

as for gruber's blog, i would say it is evenhanded and informative, albeit focused on apple and its products. the blog is certainly not "fawning", and i think most apple-buyers feel no need to "justify" their purchases.

I'll avoid offering my own impressions except to say he reminded me of the Lockergnome guy.