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_why: A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius

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Re: _why: A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius

#161

Post by jacquesm »

gdp wrote: post #156
igravious wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Allow me to quote a randomly-chosen comment from this thread: > _why's influence isn't only in code, but in thinking. And if you look around, for example on github, you will see a lot of people hacking away for fun, trying out new stuff and just doing something they love to do. Did _why start this trend? He didn't, but he was a big advocate of it. Yes, that's right, this person appears to be seriously suggesting that…

I think in large part all of this is fueled by loss and grief, wondering what might have been, or maybe trying to lay blame as to why '_why' left.

Most of it is really over the top, and you have to wonder how the non-ruby programmers get by, without access to _why's genius or his contribution to thinking in general.

_why was just some guy, he had a nice run at it, decided that it wasn't for him in the long term and proceeded to try to hit the 'undo' button. In a way it is good that most of the stuff got saved, if not we'd have an even larger problem, which is that the scope of his actual contributions would have become the stuff of legend. At least that keeps things a little bit grounded in reality.

Credit where credit is due, but let's keep some scope here _why was an ok guy while it lasted, but he certainly was no Newton, Leibniz or Ramanujan, and he did not put the 'fun' in programming except for the relatively small number of people that learned about programming through him. And for that last we should be grateful, and we should do more of it, and we should NOT destroy what we give to others to use as a base.

Especially for someone that wrote open source libraries his actions were totally unconscionable and they negate a lot of the positive feelings I would have had to his person otherwise.

Re: _why: A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius

#162

Post by moe »

elight wrote: post #121
bootload wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"... vastly over-stating the contributions of this one guy in HN comments ..." You are right to be cynical but this time I think you missed the mark. The author gives numerous examples of work "Why" produced. Their merit cannot be taken away. Just as important is the effect "Why" had on the Ruby community and other programmers who I imagine are just as or even bigger cynics. There's John Resig, Zed Shaw and Fábio Aki…

John Resig only invented jQuery. Small feat there. Sarcasm aside, _why's influence was felt beyond the Ruby community.

_why's influence was felt beyond the Ruby community.

How?

Honest question from a python programmer who never heard about him before the "he disappeared" craze a few months back.

Re: _why: A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius

#163

Post by BrandonM »

sh4na wrote: post #140

Funny how a guy who decides to pull out of the open source community and pull the plug on essential projects used by the community without so much as a line of warning is depicted as a hero. Self-centered jerk is more appropriate in this case, but it seems that the more excentric the behaviour, the more genius you are, regardless of the fact that there are vast numbers of developers who contribute daily, monthly, yea…

What the fuck have you built?

Re: _why: A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius

#164

Post by spot »

zb wrote: post #138
spot wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you're using the "anything done well is an art" definition of art which is... uhh... bull. it just dilutes the term. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art . "programming" doesn't even make it as a "disputed category". sorry.

Actually, if you want my personal definition of art in one word it is this: art is life. Whether it is done "well" doesn't really come into it. In fact if there is an objective way of determining if something is done "well", it's probably not art. I'm prepared to agree to disagree on this, but I'm not prepared to agree that Wikipedia has the last word on the subject. Sorry.

Spoken like Humpty Dumpty.

Re: _why: A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius

#165

Post by jemfinch »

spot wrote: post #133
zb wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But engineering is an art that makes extensive use of science.

Sounds like you're using the "anything done well is an art" definition of art which is... uhh... bull. it just dilutes the term. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art . "programming" doesn't even make it as a "disputed category". sorry.

Art is anything that's not done for survival or sex.

Re: _why: A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius

#166

Post by jamesbritt »

Jun8 wrote: post #94

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…

'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."'

How so? How do "you become defined by your tastes rather than ability"? And why do [y]our tastes only narrow and exclude people"?

This sounds like one of those pop-psych quotes that have little intrinsic content but ill-defined assertions into which people read what they want to believe.

I know many people who are not "creators" by most definitions, yet I don't see them as defined by their tastes, but by their everyday words and actions. And when they do express their tastes I don't see that as narrow or excluding people. Their tastes often allow me to see associations among things, and value in places I hadn't expected.

If you want to then turn it around and claim, well, these people, through their words, actions, and expressions of taste are therefor in some way creating something, then I'm lost as to what "create" is supposed to mean, other than perhaps something too amazingly broad to bother with.

(I've also known creative people who are also narrow and exclusive and petty, so these qualities seem to be pretty orthogonal.)

Re: _why: A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius

#167

Post by jamesbritt »

steveklabnik wrote: post #9
nir wrote: post #7

It was a sad day when _why left programming. I always thought he was one of the most creative people currently working in any medium, and we were lucky to have him choose code to express his ideas. Does anyone have any idea what he's been doing since?

> 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.

"Basically, the Ruby community decided that if his wish was to be gone, we'd respect that wish."

You make it sound as if there were a single monolithic Ruby community where some sort of consensus gets reached on things. That's completely imaginary.

Seems more like some folks, most most, who happen to be vocal in certain circles, decided to not try to dig shit up. But that's a reflection of those people, not _The_ Ruby Community.

Re: _why: A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius

#168

Post by gdp »

nollidge wrote: post #66
gdp wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I really don't. I'm suggesting that self-importance is a negative trait for programmers to hold. To me, cat pictures and silly songs are actually just another form of pretentious self-importance.

> cat pictures and silly songs are actually just another form of pretentious self-importance. Or they're a form of art. Out of one side of your mouth you say people should do things besides programming for fun, then when they do you call it self-important.

Sure, they are art, but that's not mutually exclusive with pretentious self-importance.

Re: _why: A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius

#169

Post by vidarh »

jacquesm wrote: post #154
gdp wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without knowing anything about you, on the basis of this comment, I suspect you are a much better programmer than most people who constantly talk about how difficult their programming work is.

I've been trying for several months now to get my head wrapped around the 'functional paradigm' (oh I hate that word), so far with very little progress so I'm not so sure about that ;)

Having tried to wrap your head around function programming puts you leaps and bounds above most programmers.

Re: _why: A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius

#170

Post by jacabado »

jemfinch wrote: post #165
spot wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you're using the "anything done well is an art" definition of art which is... uhh... bull. it just dilutes the term. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art . "programming" doesn't even make it as a "disputed category". sorry.

Art is anything that's not done for survival or sex.

For me is the opposite, Art is the group of the most elaborated things we do for sex.

Evolutionary psichology 101.

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