Personally I think _why's largest contribution to programming(or even culture) wasn't inspiring people to program. It was inspiring people to teach. We read his book and saw that teaching itself could be fun, wacky, and rewarding and it stoked a fire in lots of us to turn ourselves into educational magicians.
Where’s _why?
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Re: Where’s _why?
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
"As a journalist, I think it would have been irresponsible not to inform _why of the article and not to try to interview him. (As a general point, you don't write articles about public figures, and he was absolutely a public figure, without giving them the chance to respond.)" There's a difference between "giving them the chance to respond" and what happened here. Being a journalist doesn't give someone an excuse to…
"Being a journalist doesn't give someone an excuse to act outside the bounds of polite society." I thought we expected journalists to dig a bit deeper and not just take things at face value? Sometimes that means poking around when people might prefer you not to be.
I think that's valid when there's a suspicion of a crime, or of an hypocrisy by a politician, because that's a damage to society and it's fair to have the person punished by it.
Doing the same to a person because she did someone good is essentially punishing good deeds.
Re: Where’s _why?
#63It's obvious that _why (before his disappearance) kept to this name, as opposed to his real name, because he wanted to hold on to his privacy. Now that he's relied on that to vanish and not be bothered, he's been found out and I'm sure people are still bothering him. I feel sorry for the guy, he did awesome things for the community, but everyone has a right to be left alone should they so please. Let's keep remembering what he did for the community and honor that, and him, by catering to his wishes of privacy and a peaceful life.
Re: Where’s _why?
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're being a little too harsh. This story isn't for programmers. It's for everyone else that thinks the computer is a magic box. For us, it gives us a story about someone who is trying to learn how to program and about programming culture. I think the author did a pretty good job of taking a month and exploring both the nuts an bolts of programming and the people behind it. Sure, she still couldn't do much…
I opened my comment by praising the exact same things you’re praising, so let’s be sure that we both understand I was criticizing just one or two small things that I care deeply about.
I care deeply about _why and his contributions as well, and I still cringe thinking about how I felt the moment I realized he and his work and his wit were gone from the community forever. The Poignant Guide was my intro to Ruby and still sets the whimsical, slightly surreal tone in the back of my mind for how I think about coding to this day.
But, raganwald, upon reading and re-reading it, I didn't take one bit of "praise" from your comment. Perhaps you didn't mean to set the tone as strongly as you did, but my impression right of the bat with "Let's see now" and onward was that you were being harshly critical.
I'm sorry to see yours as the top comment, because Annie did an extraordinary amount of work and I think you've completely distracted from the essence of the article.
Not only that, I really think you've confused "stalking" with "research." Trying to reach someone for a comment about an article on them hardly qualifies as the former. This was simple journalistic persistence, entirely appropriate, and clearly she backed off "hunting a man down." Many if not most other journalists would have gone further to get the quote or create more drama, and Annie apparently got deep enough into the ethic and general tone of the Ruby community to know when enough was enough.
It was an excellent article, very sympathetic to the Ruby community, well-informed and enlightening, and I'm sorry to see that your comments here have caused others "not to read" it.
Annie Lowery did a lot of hard work -- she learned to program as part of the research for crying out loud! She deserves better recognition than this.
Re: Where’s _why?
#65Let’s see now. The article spends pages talking about _why and the author’s relationship with _why’s work. Great. It spends a page talking about _why’s desire for anonymity and reclusive nature. Good. It talks about _why’s “infosuicide” and notes that it happened shortly after he was “outed.” Fine. And then we get paragraphs detailing how this journalist stalked him trying to get him to comment about the article. Sen…
Hi there, raganwald, Annie here. I think this is a completely valid criticism, and it's one I largely expected. But for what it is worth, here are my thoughts. As a journalist, I think it would have been irresponsible not to inform _why of the article and not to try to interview him. (As a general point, you don't write articles about public figures, and he was absolutely a public figure, without giving them the chan…
Mentioning that you tracked him down and that he wants to be left alone, fine.
Throwing in "HEY EVERYONE YES THIS IS HIS REAL NAME AND HERE'S WHERE HE WORKS" - valid reporting of facts, but unnecessary, and explicitly contrary to the wishes you state. He's not Steinbeck and doesn't have a millionaire Peter Norton to help him stay private, but you have the power to redact those bits from your article, and it would likely be a nice action on your part to talk to your editors at Slate and do so. You found him. Great. Take credit, report on that in your story. But you don't have to "drop docs" on him. If you enjoyed his work, please talk to your editor.
Re: Where’s _why?
#66By choosing not to respond, this may be a brilliant move on his end in making "immortal" the persona _why (and keeping the fire hot). An article in slate, followed by discussions in various communities such as Hacker News show that he left on a high note and his persona still has a lot of "pull".
Re: Where’s _why?
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
>"I think reporting about _why is fair game, _why was a public figure. I think hunting down the man who created _why is intrusive and is at the level of a paparazzo, invading the privacy of a person who from the outset was clear about separating the two." Sorry, but I find that rediculous. If Brian Warner kills someone, or James Osterburg overdoses that is not appropriate for public news because they did it under the…
It's a rather bizarre argument... That would exclude about half of the celebrities that we know... "Prince", Lady Gaga, et al...
And you consider that to be a bad thing?
It's a perfectly sensible argument, as any person who has played both sides of the same chess game can tell you. People can and do have multiple conflicting personas, and attempting to identify [ed: coalesce] them is rarely useful. It can server to debase or solidify credentials or to explain fractures, but those are all exceptional purposes.
People have the right to put words in a different location from their money, and they have the right to invite a few friends in for a beer while the regent takes care of official matters. The press has special liberties to infringe on these rights, as they are expected to do so responsibly.
Re: Where’s _why?
#68I read this with interest. I don't want to bs you about that. I'd even go so far as to say this is an article your girlfriend or boyfriend should read... BUT what this journalist; would be programmer did for the record is the equivalent of coming into my home and pooping on the floor. THAT, I can not abide. My personal rule of thumb when learning anything new... LOOK AND LISTEN.
Re: Where’s _why?
#69Re: Where’s _why?
#70On a slightly less controversial tangent, the author did a nice job explaining getting up and running with her first program as well as explaining what programming does. The comments at the article thus far are mainly from programmers. It would be interesting to see how much non-technical folks take away from it.
Yes, I think it illustrates what I think is the actual steepest learning curve to start programming and that's abstraction, to apply meaning to arbitrary things. It's something we are not really used to learning in standard education. Sure there's math, but most of the time it's taught by applying some kind of method without most ever questioning further.
I think the best way to learn programming is by doing puzzles and logic mind-benders. Get your brain used to abstract thinking and following logic, as well as being rewarded for solving a difficult problem.
If you manage that, than programming becomes simply applying conventions logically to solve problems (also prepare to be flooded with increasingly higher level conventions).