51–60 of 149 posts
Worth reading through for a chuckle. Don't deprive yourself. Why_ had a type of character we can easily forget used to exist, in this modern world where everyone is either slammed through cookie-cutters to become over-socialized slimy corporate people or medicated into a zombie-like state of partial existence.
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I never got it. Everyone says it’s fantastic, I feel like an idiot for absolutely not getting it at all when it came out and still not today.
it characterizes programming in a way that is basically incoherent to most stereotypical programmers (i agree with you, for the record, it was gobbledegook to me too) the question is: does programming represent some kind of subjective expression, or some kind of objective precision? why's little zine says it's the former, but that's not how i see it at all programming is, for me, like working on math problems, or bal…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I never got it. Everyone says it’s fantastic, I feel like an idiot for absolutely not getting it at all when it came out and still not today.
it characterizes programming in a way that is basically incoherent to most stereotypical programmers (i agree with you, for the record, it was gobbledegook to me too) the question is: does programming represent some kind of subjective expression, or some kind of objective precision? why's little zine says it's the former, but that's not how i see it at all programming is, for me, like working on math problems, or bal…
_why's work was much of what got me into Ruby in the first place. Not so much quirky as proudly both hyperliterate and unhinged, like the computing world's extension of depressed indie bands meeting David Foster Wallace in the early aughts. Most of us that would've been into _why's stuff now have more traditional-looking jobs and responsibilities. But I'm so grateful for what he showed us then, and miss the more genu…
I worry a lot that I contributed to how this is now, too, in my professional life.
a thing I realized recently is that _why's disappearance ends up making his work more "Poignant" - the tech stuff washes away, but the story lives on. In that sense, it's a success.
if you look at old technology, the descriptions and documentation tend to outlast the artifacts. I like to imagine us as stage performers - any given implementation of a Shakespeare play only lasts a couple hours, but the structure of it is timeless. Perhaps we should all be writing more, implementing less.
also, it's always good to consider what fame is, and what it does to people. In an attention economy, we imagine that fame is wealth - but it's clearly not so straightforward
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Why the lucky stiff wrote a great, poignant guide to Ruby. A lot of people loved it and demanded more from Why. They decided they didn't want to be in the public eye even a little, and wrote a goodbye. I think CLOSURE is that goodbye?
This is broadly correct, yes. _why decided to leave, and did so. Years later, his website reappeared, containing the information I've collected here. CLOSURE is the title I gave it, because that is what I think it represents.
I think it's good to leave him alone, that's what wants.
interesting timing, I've been thinking about _why lately; Brett Victor's recent update https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36596095 gave me _why vibes. a thing I realized recently is that _why's disappearance ends up making his work more "Poignant" - the tech stuff washes away, but the story lives on. In that sense, it's a success. if you look at old technology, the descriptions and documentation tend to outlast the…
Kafka asked his friend Max to burn all of his works and not have them published, but he was betrayed, and so we have Kafka's books.
_why burned his own works, but thanks to git, we were able to posthumously un-burn them.
And then this work was temporary, and what I did was make it permanent. Again.
Most of _why's projects don't really work on modern hardware, or with up to date compilers, or up to date versions of Ruby. Yet we can still read this book today.
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This is broadly correct, yes. _why decided to leave, and did so. Years later, his website reappeared, containing the information I've collected here. CLOSURE is the title I gave it, because that is what I think it represents.
Has he ever reached out to you? His identity isn't that hard to work out - though he's no longer an engineer. I think it's good to leave him alone, that's what wants.
Part of me would love to talk to him someday, and part of me would prefer that we don't. I am incredibly thankful that he braved the danger to give us this; in some ways I do feel like this was us talking.
It's complicated.
_why's work was much of what got me into Ruby in the first place. Not so much quirky as proudly both hyperliterate and unhinged, like the computing world's extension of depressed indie bands meeting David Foster Wallace in the early aughts. Most of us that would've been into _why's stuff now have more traditional-looking jobs and responsibilities. But I'm so grateful for what he showed us then, and miss the more genu…
I still strongly prefer the worldview, circumstances, mindset, etc. where that kind of content is written, read, and celebrated over today's focus on Influence and Professionalism.