111–120 of 183 posts
And why hide your real name in the first place ? Considering that he gave presentations and made appearances, it was only a matter of time.
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> Does anyone have any idea what he's been doing since? Basically, the Ruby community decided that if his wish was to be gone, we'd respect that wish. Nothing has been heard since his disappearance.
I think that any tendencies to find out stuff about him tend to lean in two directions: * The _why that we knew would not be averse to setting up a puzzle of this sort. * We simply want to make sure that he didn't kill himself or anything like that.
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haha, wow nobody wants to challenge me on this?
There's nothing to challenge. You've made a statement of your opinion, and you've stated it in such a confrontational way that nobody wishes to engage you with a response. Maybe rather than saying 'wow' and laughing, you should consider why the things that you say cause others to want to exclude you from the conversation, rather than reply.
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Yo. I would suggest that as an admitted non-fan of Ruby then you are in no position to comment. Besides, _why could draw, anyone could appreciate his stuff I'd imagine. He could play music. He had a quirky sense of humour, and was a creative and endlessly surprising person. Now, this ain't sycophantic as you call, he genuinely was these things. Sorry if that bothers you. There's this cute paper some guy once wrote, i…
Why are people who are not fans of Ruby not allowed to comment on how _why, arguably someone that made an impression in the programming world, has influenced their little corner of the world? _why has done absolutely nothing for me either, I cannot stand Ruby, and its community, I don't understand why all the reverence for this single man. Yes, I know of _why's work, and yes seeing other people use his old nickname m…
What I'm getting here from _why's detractors is that your animosity towards _why is bound up with your animosity towards Ruby. I have never understood language wars. Each language brings something different to the party. I learn different languages just for the fun of it. We can be competitive and cheerlead our own corner but it's tedious when people start spewing bile.
I don't think you can project your childhood emotions onto _why's pulling of his online presence. We can only guess at why he did what he did. He disappearance and removing of the code and so forth that he was in control of does pose interesting questions in this age where source-code is shared and diaries are public. If it's important enough people will have copies and keep a hold of the bits they like. I can see how it would annoy somebody to feel like something of worth could be removed from the world so easily but maybe we'll have to get used to that. You could argue that _why had a social responsibility to not do what he did but surely we must allow him some personal autonomy as well.
For my part I'll try to understand your perspective but could you also try to appreciate mine? Thanks!
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Programming as science: not consistent with reality IMHO. My argument is that it's pretty simple to build a good computer scientist: take a guy with good IQ and put it into a good university. But there are zero guarantees that you'll end with a good coder also, as coding is a matter of taste, tradeoffs, design decisions, creativity, ability to think out of the box, and so forth. The problem is that most of our indust…
(Note that this response isn't an attack on you specifically, it's just my feelings towards this argument in general) Where is the magical divide between "art" and "science" in the field? Do the adherents of either side even know what they're defending? If I know what a finite state machine is and how to apply it, does that make me "scientific"? If I hack together a web application in Scheme, instead of some Mathemag…
We need to revive the word "artisan" which has connotations both of technical ability and artistic sensibility. Look at it like that, and programmers are no different from thousands of generations of craftsmen from here to the pyramids. It's just that the tools of our trade are usually far more complex than theirs. (Although I still have no idea how to build a pyramid.)
I think this is why some people like to compare programming to painting or writing or whatever their other life's endeavour is. I don't think there is a direct correlation between programming and those other things, but you start using the same parts of the brain for parts of both activities, so it feels as though it's roughly the same.
So here's my comparison between programming and writing: every word must be relevant, there is no redundancy, no unnecessary repetition. Good code and good writing must be tight, clean and comprehensible. I mentioned this to a co-worker once and he said "I'd never thought about it like that. I think it's more to do with mathematics." Which it also is.
Being a non-creator, the quote at the end of the article has hit me so hard, I cannot get it off my head for hours now: "When you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. Your tastes only narrow and exclude people. so create." As for the programming is a science or art debate: It is' of course wrong to make such a dichotomy. People who draw a thick boundary between these two, I thin…
I've never read much of _why's work so I don't have much to add to the thread, except that: I did read that quote by _why some months ago and it hasn't gotten off my head since then. It's like a mantra, and for me it alternates between being inspiring and depressing. Perhaps I disagree with you. I think programming is a craft, but that's different from art. In any case, though every time we write some code we're crea…
And the Renaissance artists had to make a living somehow, much of their art we know today was made to order for Church, State or rich merchants.
We may consider "pure art" to be "form without function" and "pure utility" to be "function without form". But fields like industrial design, architecture and engineering (ex. bridges) has room for both: Aesthetically pleasing form that merges well with their function.
If programming is art, it's the form+function sort of art. And just like with bridge building, the form part is optional - if the program works and the bridge does not collapse they are doing their job.
I don't consider the code for my day job to be art either. But I still think art can arise under such conditions, generally because someone with the power to do so goes beyond the call of duty and decides to make their bridge or code not only functional but beautiful as well.
There are plenty of constraints that can stop considerations of form dead in their tracks; like whether the client is willing to pay extra or wait longer for a more aesthetically pleasing result, or how much control you have over the final result - there are limits to how creative you can be if you are a subcontractor for a bridge pillar, or if you are designing an ad that needs to fit within the company's design guidelines and an existing ad series.
Still, I think art can arise in the most unexpected places, it's mostly a matter of spotting the opportunities and deciding that it is worth the bother.
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Programming as science: not consistent with reality IMHO. My argument is that it's pretty simple to build a good computer scientist: take a guy with good IQ and put it into a good university. But there are zero guarantees that you'll end with a good coder also, as coding is a matter of taste, tradeoffs, design decisions, creativity, ability to think out of the box, and so forth. The problem is that most of our indust…
I realize that it can be irritating to have someone come in and split the difference, but in this case the problem seems to be that programming has some elements of art and some elements of science. So if you get people who passionately want to argue one side or the other, they argue past each other. Is an elephant chiefly long skinny parts (tusks, a trunk) or chiefly big round parts (main body)? I feel like I'm hear…
He was sort of like a contemporary one-man open source Beagle Bros. Unfortunately there is no place in current programming culture for people like this. Programming is not art. It is certainly not whimsical. It is fun, but only fun like preparing for a rocket launch or hostile takeover is fun. Programming is science, it's engineering, it's methodology, it is bureaucracy. More importantly it is Serious Business. Progr…
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No wonder you're angry then. Ok, that makes me understand your position in this thread a bit better. Thanks for the explanation!
To give you an example of why starkfist would say something like this, you only need to look at @_why's last few tweets: "programming is rather thankless. you see your works become replaced by superior works in a year. unable to run at all in a few more." "if you program and want any longevity to your work, make a game. all else recycles, but people rewrite architectures to keep games alive." "an ascending homage to…