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_why is no more

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81–90 of 421 posts

Re: _why is no more

#81
post #71

_why just posted a new repo on github: http://github.com/why/lol/tree/master EDIT: Weird, the repo description is "wtf adam, are you this slow". Hope he didn't get hacked. EDIT 2: original link is dead.

That does not appear to be the same 'why' account as before. 0 followers, created today.

Re: _why is no more

#82
post #17
post #2

I just noticed that _why apparently deleted his twitter account. I then found that that wasn't all he deleted: http://twitter.com/_why http://github.com/why http://whytheluckystiff.net/ http://poignantguide.net/ http://hackety.org/ http://shoooes.net/ All disappeared... For those who don't know who I'm talking about: http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_the_lucky_stiff

That was pretty immature, to delete the repos as well. Sure, nuke your Twitter, who cares. But people might have been depending on the repos; it's a breach of trust IMO. Not impressed.

Have a little respect. Unlike most of us here, _why never profited directly on his online celebrity status. If he chose to remove himself from the 'net, it seems only reasonable that he would want to shut down public repositories he managed, if only to avoid the inevitable deluge of complaints about them going stale, requests for commit rights from other people, etc.

The fact that you would care more about his shepherding of repositories which have been available to everyone else all along speaks volumes to me about the kind of attitudes that probably helped to drive him offline in the first place.

Re: _why is no more

#83
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

THE PURGES HAVE BEGUN! SAVE YOURSELVES! Seriously though, I hope he's /okay/....

Good point; hopefully he's not suicidal. Anybody know the guy personally?

Nobody knows much about _why. He's always been a mystery.

Re: _why is no more

#84
post #6

Apparently he tweeted this yesterday (quoted from a retweet): "programming is rather thankless. u see your works become replaced by superior ones in a year. unable to run at all in a few more." But _why's contributions are largely irreplaceable. Yeah, software evolves and individual projects might be supplanted by others, but his contributions go way beyond simply writing functioning code.

There has been some negativity about hpricot lately: http://twitter.com/#search?q=Nokogiri%20hpricot

And hpricot is the only living remnant of _why.

Re: _why is no more

#85
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was pretty immature, to delete the repos as well. Sure, nuke your Twitter, who cares. But people might have been depending on the repos; it's a breach of trust IMO. Not impressed.

Let's wait for the circumstances before passing judgement.

Name some circumstances which justify pulling down a broadly-used open source project like Hpricot. At a certain point it must be admitted that a project has a life beyond its author.

Re: _why is no more

#86
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if he is, taking down ANY trace of your online presence is highly unusual.

_why has always been an unusual guy. He has always prized his pseudonymity online, so I'm honestly not entirely shocked to see that he has decided to simply pack it up and move on. It's a sad day for all of us, but I hope and trust that he has good reasons for this decision. His contributions to the world of Ruby and programming-as-art will not be soon forgotten.

Well true, and he likely cultivated his anonymity for just such an occasion...

His legend will only grow...

Re: _why is no more

#87
post #6

Apparently he tweeted this yesterday (quoted from a retweet): "programming is rather thankless. u see your works become replaced by superior ones in a year. unable to run at all in a few more." But _why's contributions are largely irreplaceable. Yeah, software evolves and individual projects might be supplanted by others, but his contributions go way beyond simply writing functioning code.

I'm not in the ruby world, so perhaps that's why his contributions have largely been outside my sphere and there may be a great deal I'm unaware of. That said, when someone goes and removes their repositories and whatever other traces of their workproduct they have access to (as is their right), it might make people reluctant to use their products in the future (assuming they return).

_why has never really made "products" -- in fact, as far as I know, he's never made money from any of the stuff he shared online. (Sales of physical copies of the Poignant Guide may be the one exception to this, but IIRC, he priced it exactly at his cost in order to insure the widest possible distribution.)

Re: _why is no more

#88
post #67

_why was to the ruby community what willy wonka was to chocolate. Maybe, just as the fictional Willy Wonka secluded himself in his chocolate factory for so many years due to competition, _why is simply secluding himself in his programming factory. Deliciously sweet chocolates (or libraries/books/hacketyhack/etc.) will hopefully magically still appear. Maybe _why is simply going to oompa loompa land to get little help…

Where is Charlie?

[deleted]

Re: _why is no more

#89
post #13
post #2

I just noticed that _why apparently deleted his twitter account. I then found that that wasn't all he deleted: http://twitter.com/_why http://github.com/why http://whytheluckystiff.net/ http://poignantguide.net/ http://hackety.org/ http://shoooes.net/ All disappeared... For those who don't know who I'm talking about: http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_the_lucky_stiff

Google cache is still live: http://74.125.155.132/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&#38... Edit: Also, twitter search results: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%40_why Notably: racheltostring: RT: @_why: programming is rather thankless. u see your works become replaced by superior ones in a year. unable to run at all in a few more. about 21 hours ago from TwitterFox

programming is rather thankless...

Maybe he read http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=771057 in Re: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=771013 ?

Re: _why is no more

#90
post #81
post #71

_why just posted a new repo on github: http://github.com/why/lol/tree/master EDIT: Weird, the repo description is "wtf adam, are you this slow". Hope he didn't get hacked. EDIT 2: original link is dead.

That does not appear to be the same 'why' account as before. 0 followers, created today.

Probably some guy just registered the username after _why deleted it.
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