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_why's complete printer spool as one book [pdf]

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Re: _why's complete printer spool as one book [pdf]

#101

Post by harrisreynolds »

eob wrote: post #72
thaumaturgy wrote: post #17

I think the thing I like about _why -- not that anybody asked -- is that I'm never sure what to think when I'm reading this stuff. Usually I can't get through more than a few sentences of something without judging it: "That was smart, this was insightful, this author is a moron, I don't think that was right, I disagree with that but I'm not bothered by their opinion..." _why really kills that here. I'm never sure if…

Nicely put. I think that you've really captured what about his writing and persona are so special to the community. I think the sense of sensitivity you feel through his writing adds to that, too. If he's making a joke of you, it's a gentle one. Kind of the yin to Zed Shaw's yang.

I thought of Zed Shaw some when reading these comments too. Definitely different from _why but still comes at things from a different and sometimes bizarre perspective that I like!

Re: _why's complete printer spool as one book [pdf]

#102

Post by pygy_ »

jablan wrote: post #84
alxndr wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I started reading Poignant Guide with the aim of improving my Ruby knowledge Well there's your first problem.

I understand that (now), however, PGR has often been recommended as an introductory book to Ruby, while it should be considered a piece of art in the first place. I guess _why should have chosen a bit more esoteric language as a vehicle. Luckily, there's plenty of them floating around ever since the fifties. :)

The Poignant Guide predates Rails. Ruby was still obscure at the time.

Re: _why's complete printer spool as one book [pdf]

#103

Post by KirinDave »

chrisrhoden wrote: post #86
KirinDave wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Got that out of your system, buddy? No. >"Our modern software community", referring to the current generation of the software community, obviously doesn't refer to the whole generation of people who existed and did good work before _why entered the scene. In our generation you can find tons of people doing performance art with code and custom hardware. The music scene is positively bursting at the seams, as is the…

> In our generation you can find tons of people doing performance art with code and custom hardware. The music scene is positively bursting at the seams, as is the gaming community. This is specifically addressed in the top post. You're attacking a strawman. Nobody is saying that this stuff isn't valuable, it's just fundamentally different from what this post is talking about. I won't go so far as to say that you're…

> You're attacking a strawman.

No, I'm attacking a false dichotomy. Anyone who cares to talk to Daft Punk about how they do what they do will see they are technicians as well as musicians.

And if you're saying performance art ABOUT software with software as the subject should be held distinct in some arbitrary and rarefied sense, then I provided an example for that too.

Re: _why's complete printer spool as one book [pdf]

#104

Post by chrisrhoden »

KirinDave wrote: post #103
chrisrhoden wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In our generation you can find tons of people doing performance art with code and custom hardware. The music scene is positively bursting at the seams, as is the gaming community. This is specifically addressed in the top post. You're attacking a strawman. Nobody is saying that this stuff isn't valuable, it's just fundamentally different from what this post is talking about. I won't go so far as to say that you're…

> You're attacking a strawman. No, I'm attacking a false dichotomy. Anyone who cares to talk to Daft Punk about how they do what they do will see they are technicians as well as musicians. And if you're saying performance art ABOUT software with software as the subject should be held distinct in some arbitrary and rarefied sense, then I provided an example for that too.

Are you referring to your Jim Wierich anecdote? I'm pretty sure he would agree with the distinction being made here, and I am certain that art historians would.

Jim was the absolute best speaker I have seen when he gave a presentation about git at the Ruby Hoedown. His motivations for making the talk interesting were very different from the perceived motivations for the nature of the poignant guide - Jim sought to increase understanding. _why seems not to have given too many shits about that pursuit.

Re: _why's complete printer spool as one book [pdf]

#105

Post by [deleted] »

KirinDave wrote: post #103
chrisrhoden wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In our generation you can find tons of people doing performance art with code and custom hardware. The music scene is positively bursting at the seams, as is the gaming community. This is specifically addressed in the top post. You're attacking a strawman. Nobody is saying that this stuff isn't valuable, it's just fundamentally different from what this post is talking about. I won't go so far as to say that you're…

> You're attacking a strawman. No, I'm attacking a false dichotomy. Anyone who cares to talk to Daft Punk about how they do what they do will see they are technicians as well as musicians. And if you're saying performance art ABOUT software with software as the subject should be held distinct in some arbitrary and rarefied sense, then I provided an example for that too.

[deleted]

Re: _why's complete printer spool as one book [pdf]

#106

Post by KirinDave »

chrisrhoden wrote: post #104
KirinDave wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're attacking a strawman. No, I'm attacking a false dichotomy. Anyone who cares to talk to Daft Punk about how they do what they do will see they are technicians as well as musicians. And if you're saying performance art ABOUT software with software as the subject should be held distinct in some arbitrary and rarefied sense, then I provided an example for that too.

Are you referring to your Jim Wierich anecdote? I'm pretty sure he would agree with the distinction being made here, and I am certain that art historians would. Jim was the absolute best speaker I have seen when he gave a presentation about git at the Ruby Hoedown. His motivations for making the talk interesting were very different from the perceived motivations for the nature of the poignant guide - Jim sought to in…

> Jim sought to increase understanding. _why seems not to have given too many shits about that pursuit.

You're right, Jim is better at didactic work than _why is. This doesn't mean the thing he did at rubyconf back in those early days when less than 50 people were there was any less performance art.

Jim didn't have postmodernist fox banter, and he's probably too humble to call what he does "an art." But that's okay, we can and should do it for him.

Re: _why's complete printer spool as one book [pdf]

#107

Post by chrisrhoden »

KirinDave wrote: post #106
chrisrhoden wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you referring to your Jim Wierich anecdote? I'm pretty sure he would agree with the distinction being made here, and I am certain that art historians would. Jim was the absolute best speaker I have seen when he gave a presentation about git at the Ruby Hoedown. His motivations for making the talk interesting were very different from the perceived motivations for the nature of the poignant guide - Jim sought to in…

> Jim sought to increase understanding. _why seems not to have given too many shits about that pursuit. You're right, Jim is better at didactic work than _why is. This doesn't mean the thing he did at rubyconf back in those early days when less than 50 people were there was any less performance art. Jim didn't have postmodernist fox banter, and he's probably too humble to call what he does "an art." But that's okay,…

Unfortunately, that's simply not the modern understanding of what art is and how it works.

Text books, no matter how relevant they may be to your experience, are different from novels. And it's precisely because Jim wouldn't call it art that it isn't.

Re: _why's complete printer spool as one book [pdf]

#108

Post by KirinDave »

chrisrhoden wrote: post #107
KirinDave wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Jim sought to increase understanding. _why seems not to have given too many shits about that pursuit. You're right, Jim is better at didactic work than _why is. This doesn't mean the thing he did at rubyconf back in those early days when less than 50 people were there was any less performance art. Jim didn't have postmodernist fox banter, and he's probably too humble to call what he does "an art." But that's okay,…

Unfortunately, that's simply not the modern understanding of what art is and how it works. Text books, no matter how relevant they may be to your experience, are different from novels. And it's precisely because Jim wouldn't call it art that it isn't.

> Text books, no matter how relevant they may be to your experience, are different from novels. And it's precisely because Jim wouldn't call it art that it isn't.

I firmly assert this is wrong. You firmly assert contrary. Let's leave it at that. Further discussion is useless.

Re: _why's complete printer spool as one book [pdf]

#109

Post by ep103 »

MrUnknown wrote: post #67
taylorbuley wrote: post #21

I've read _why's guide to Ruby but feel out of the loop here. What is this? Why is it significant?

I am not following this nearly as much as everyone else, but I can explain why I am interested in it. _why is more of an artist instead of a programmer, he became popular, wanted to be anonymous (or at least his actions and code be more important than the person) but didn't really hide his identity. Once who he was became semi-popular (an actual name and, I believe, where he worked) he completely deleted his online p…

But why would he? He's literally turned the internet into his printer. File --> Print --> To Internet. And this way, he can still stay offline.

Re: _why's complete printer spool as one book [pdf]

#110

Post by twelvechairs »

coffeejunk wrote: post #26

It is easy to see _why as "the crazy ruby guy who wrote some scripts and created all this drama around his persona". Even though _why did indeed write some (very useful) programs, I think this view of him misses the point and probably explains why so many people seem to be puzzled by his newest endeavour. Yes, he wrote some Ruby code, but the code was his least important contribution. _why was the first person to act…

> the code was his least important contribution.

This is not really true. _why really embodied the 'ruby way' with his code through churning out solutions to all manner of complex tasks, consistently, quickly and with source code that was terse, readable and conceptually simple.

His contributions helped to validate ruby as a language for a lot of people and also helped the ruby community to define itself (I doubt you'd find a character like _why in the Python community for instance).

This is important, even if most of his source code is not used anymore (generally because when _why stopped updating it, nobody else really could or would).

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