Yep!
Of course, I think the game theory involved with this practice has been, at least at one point, more effective than having nothing to show at all.
Normally, I don't toot my own horn, but I was one of the few who published packages that actually did something, and something that was fairly unique at the time (I won't necessarily say good!), and the projects I showed off to prospective employers were things I did outside of bootcamp.
In my experience, very few employers, or those in charge of any level of hiring, will rarely if ever actually devote more than 10 seconds to anything on your portfolio. I know some will beg to differ, but that was my experience. It happens, but it's rare. At the time, one could have probably gotten away most of the time with merely claiming to have published open-source code or showing off how you got some GitHub stars. In retrospect, I can't say much of my honest portfolio work did for me other than act as learning experiences. Cranking out a bunch of garbage code would have sufficed for showing that I had some "skill" for landing my first job.
That ANSI code thing is funny as hell, though! I loathe what it represents, but admire how it proves a point by gaming the system. Also demonstrates my point that so much of what defines success in this field has been the mere appearance of even a shred of clout.