I've read _why's guide to Ruby but feel out of the loop here. What is this? Why is it significant?
It's closure for those that took over his projects and for those that worried about his sudden disappearance. http://words.steveklabnik.com/closure
_why's complete printer spool as one book [pdf]
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Re: _why's complete printer spool as one book [pdf]
#92[deleted]
Re: _why's complete printer spool as one book [pdf]
#93_why's site 404'd just now. I hope he's okay.
Some people in the irc room believe that he is doing just fine; that this was an event to ensure that the character/role _why is returned to the public domain in an orderly manner. The original maintainer of the _why persona appears to be doing okay and in good spirits. He gave people combs and a triumph message on the website.
Re: _why's complete printer spool as one book [pdf]
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
[OP here, figured it might be helpful to actually create an account...] In that case, could you please name a few artists that you believe did exactly that? I'm honestly interested in finding more of such art. But before you do, let me rephrase what I wrote above, because it's easy to misunderstand one short sentence (and I'm definitely guilty of not explaining very well what I mean): When I talk about art around and…
> or at least of nothing that I would consider as art That probably is part of the problem here. For starters, you could try looking into Jeffrey Shaw & Gideon May. Netochka Nezvanova is another name that springs to mind (but that likely will not qualify by some of your criteria), the Electronic Disturbance Theater is another. There are probably 100's if not 1000's of artists that have chosen to use the computer as t…
I agree that at least my use of the word "art" wasn't sufficiently explained (isn't that always the case? ;)), but my other 2 conditions were definitely present in the original text. I am not trying to "win" this argument by artificially narrowing the definition, I am honestly interested in finding more artists with the same qualities.
Regarding the artists you selected, I am not familiar with all their major works and I will definitely look into their artworks more thoroughly later, but at first glance all of them can be categorized as Audi-Visual-Software art / Internet art / political activism using code as art / etc. Put differently, I could imagine seeing all of them in connection with the Ars Electronica selection for example. Would you really label _why with any of these genres? Or suggest that his work might fit in the Prix Ars Electronica categories? To me his work has a very distinct feel from all the artists you listed and belongs in a different genre. I tried to capture this distinct quality in my above definition, where the most important aspect is definitely that the art must be "about software" (and more specifically about code). His works are all much more introspective than what I have seen elsewhere.
The best allegory that springs to mind is this: While other artists often used code ingeniously to look at many different aspects of technology & culture, _why was the first artist who used code to look back at code and its development process itself and also necessarily the developer cultures around it. This is probably also one reason why he was so tied to the Ruby community. I could understand if you find this definition to be too narrow, but to me this "closing of the loop", this self reference is a very distinct quality.
Re: _why's complete printer spool as one book [pdf]
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Let me modify the OP's comment, Jacques: _why was one of the first people to create art around and about our modern software community. Let me modify jacquesm's comment so we can put a halt on this. Fuck you for discarding the creative work of literally a whole generation of people in the software community before _why entered the scene. I cannot use any term less hostile. It's that repugnant to me. It's such a tox…
Wow, I really did not expect such a reaction. Where exactly do you see me (OP) or the parent discard the creative work of a whole generation of people? In fact, in my top post I talked about a very particular combination of different things that make _why unique. I still stand by the hypothesis that _why was (at least one of) the first artist(s) to show such a combination in his artwork. Of course there were lots of…
Where exactly do you see me (OP) or the parent discard the creative work of a whole generation of people?
Right about here:
_why was the first person to actually create art "around" and "about" software.
That statement is discarding the creative work of (at least) a whole generation of people. Certainly you claw a bit back by stating "but to my knowledge". However, the rest of your statement throws away that concession.
Re: _why's complete printer spool as one book [pdf]
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Got that out of your system, buddy? "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. Clearly Ada Lovelace and _why were far from contemporaries. You are reading something into what I wrote that isn't actually there. It's nice that you're as passionate ab…
> 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…
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Re: _why's complete printer spool as one book [pdf]
#97I 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…
I really like how you put that - it perfectly sums up how I feel about it. I'm never sure exactly what parts he's kidding about (though there are a few obvious ones), but that isn't the point, right? It's a story, and the story and the feeling you get from the story are the point, not specifically what is and isn't true.
A lot of people have tried to dissect this way too far and have gotten extremely heated in the process. I would argue that they haven't spent enough time dealing with high art. The artist might have a statement they're making with a certain piece, but ultimately that's unimportant next to what you take away from it. If this speaks to you, if this is meaningful to you, then that is the point. The reaction you take away is precisely what it is, and there's no point in arguing about it - but if you wish to share and revel in the experience, let's collectively appreciate it in that way.
I for one found it enthralling. Part of it I know had to do with nostalgia, as I actually was first interested in programming in part by his Poignant guide. The first third or so of the book really reflected that writing style, and I loved it. As it progressed, it got heavier and heavier, and I'm still not sure I understand the allegory he was painting, but the sense I got from it was very clear to me. Some have suggested that it was in reference to his experience in the startup world, and I can buy that, but I feel like there was something there that I probably won't grasp until I wake up in the middle of the night tonight thinking about it.
Thanks for telling us one more story _why, wether it's your last or not, I enjoyed it.
Re: _why's complete printer spool as one book [pdf]
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Let me modify the OP's comment, Jacques: _why was one of the first people to create art around and about our modern software community. Let me modify jacquesm's comment so we can put a halt on this. Fuck you for discarding the creative work of literally a whole generation of people in the software community before _why entered the scene. I cannot use any term less hostile. It's that repugnant to me. It's such a tox…
Let me add to my other comment: I apologize if what I said came out dismissive of the many, many great programmers that do good work and help form the community. I was trying to provide context for why _why strikes such a chord within some people, rather than argue that everybody should feel about _why the same way that his biggest fans do. It was genuinely not my intention to rustle any jimmies, and I am sorry that…
Hat tip for use of the words 'Jimmies' and 'Rustled'
And boy, you sure did rustle them :-)
Re: _why's complete printer spool as one book [pdf]
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
> _why was the first person to actually create art around and about software. That's complete rubbish. But it probably is correct that he was the first person that created art around and about software that you are aware of.
[OP here, figured it might be helpful to actually create an account...] In that case, could you please name a few artists that you believe did exactly that? I'm honestly interested in finding more of such art. But before you do, let me rephrase what I wrote above, because it's easy to misunderstand one short sentence (and I'm definitely guilty of not explaining very well what I mean): When I talk about art around and…
(I like _why and I don't have any problem with the attention he receives or anything. But I did kind of agree with some of the "that's rubbish" responses to the "first" stuff.)
I'm reasonably sure I won't agree with you on any definition of art. But, uh, here's some stuff. I may-or-may-not think of some of it as art. I do think it's stuff that keeps the coding world from being some dreadful place of "craftsmanship" and "professionalism" and things.
The miniKanren presentations are wonderful. They're all "and now let's run this stuff backwards. Because because." http://www.infoq.com/presentations/miniKanren
Meta-circular evaluators. Page 13 of http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/book/LISP%... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m6hoOelZH8&list=ECE18841... http://www.scheme.com/tspl4/examples.html#./examples:h7 ("After completing the preceding exercise, use the interpreter to run a copy of the interpreter, and use the copy to run another copy of the interpreter. Repeat this process to see how many levels deep it will go before the system grinds to a halt." :D)
SICP opens with this: http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-3.html I think it's lovely.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsger_W._Dijkstra "One of Dijkstra's sidelines was serving as Chairman of the Board of the fictional Mathematics Inc., a company that he imagined having commercialized the production of mathematical theorems in the same way that software companies had commercialized the production of computer programs. He invented a number of activities and challenges of Mathematics Inc. and documented them in several papers in the EWD series."
Also obfuscated code and some esolang stuff, I guess.
I remember some competition that was about creating and hiding some bug that did some particular thing in code that appeared to do something else, in a way that seemed (if discovered) like it was a mistake. That was cute.
Oh, and maybe http://sigbovik.org/ Maybe not.
Re: _why's complete printer spool as one book [pdf]
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you be more specific about what seemed wrong to you about the culture surrounding ruby? I'm curious.
I can try to explain my impression, which is quite similar, only, in my case, wasn't strong enough to drive me away from Ruby. I started reading Poignant Guide with the aim of improving my Ruby knowledge (I started with Pickaxe and was quite satisfied with it), and learning Ruby idioms and philosophy better. Instead, I found a cryptic artsy graphic novel full of absurd humour, cultural references and so on. I found i…
The community seemed to be headed by elitist wizards, which were inventing their own culture, their own "secret language" and initiation rites. Almost a cult.
I think you read way too much in to it :( I mean, WPGTR is like Monty Python. Some people love it -- really love it -- and others don't. You didn't need to feel alienated, because plenty of other people didn't get it either. And _why might have spoke at conferences, but he was very separate from the people who 'headed' ruby at the time.