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Does anyone know what happened to him? To me it seems like a digital suicide :(

by plaes 17y ago

markmywords 17y ago
I too would like to know. His work was just plain awesome!
- jacobolus 17y ago
  http://ejohn.org/blog/eulogy-to-_why/ http://ejohn.org/blog/eulogy-to-_why/
  - michael_dorfman 17y ago
    An alternate view: http://www.zedshaw.com/blog/2009-08-19.html http://www.zedshaw.com/blog/2009-08-19.html
    - unalone 17y ago
      Zed's an idiot. He made up a fantasy about what he thought _why might be doing, and proceeded to insult _why and generally be a jackass without knowing what he was doing. At the time I commented here saying Zed and _why were foils in many ways. I still believe that. _why was all about encouraging creative expression and absolute artistic freedom, and about making people excited about things. For all that he had a vibrant personality, his work was never about himself. It was about the people he wanted to excite. Zed, meanwhile, is a similarly hard worker, but in Zed's world everything is about Zed and there's a right way and a wrong way to do everything, and Zed is the one who decides. _why was fine with the fact that not everybody wanted to do things his way. Zed's most famous for yelling and belittling other people, this article included. While I respect Zed's intellect and like that he's working for one of my favorite companies, he's juvenile and embodies a lot of the parts of this scene that I despise.
      - jacoblyles 17y ago
        It took a non-negligible amount of work to recreate _why's work in the wake of his disappearance. There's something very much against the engineering ethos in that. It's like burning books or destroying art because you're having a bad day. Sure, Zed has worse marketing than _why's "happy fuzzy" persona, but I agree with him in this case. From the comments on the github page, it looks like tryruby was rewritten, the code was never recovered. It is a bit ironic that the hardest artifacts of _why to recover were the projects aimed at teaching Ruby to children (tryruby and some of the books).
        deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
        unalone 17y ago
        The difference between Zed and _why is that _why never believed in an engineering ethos. I wasn't happy that tryruby is so annihilated. The version they recovered still has issues. I tried using it to get my 14-year-old brother into Ruby, and there was too many bugs for him to smoothly guide through it. But at the same time, I know nothing of _why's decision to remove it, and I won't pretend like I know one so that I can bash him. If one day he returns and explains himself and I find him wanting, then I'll criticize him, but I'm not going to spew hate in his direction even if I do. I'm simply grateful for all the things he gave the community, no strings attached. If the day he'd gone we never saw any of his work again, he'd still have made me a better person, inspired me to try things I'd never done. Beyond that he never had a responsibility to me and so I'm not angry. Hell, I'm still discovering new things of his — the music from his old band is playing through on iTunes now, and it's inspired stuff. (I could further the comparison by saying that Zed writes a lot about practicing guitar, but the music he's made is derivative; _why's music is haphazard and amateur but it evokes something. But that's not fair to Zed.) As I said, I respect some things about Zed, and if he didn't spend his time being an arse to other people I'd respect him a lot more. But all the time he spends being negative really irks me, especially when it's targeted towards one of the most positive people in the community he left so violently.
        17y ago
camccann 17y ago
A few people did some internet stalking back when he first disappeared and tracked down some of his real-life friends and family. Creepy, yes, but also enough to determine that the man behind the pseudonym is alive and well. And, since one of the suspected reasons for why he chose to disappear as he did was "people prying into his real-life non-_why identity", it's probably best if we leave it at that.
- eli 17y ago
  Wow, what kind of jerk would call up his family when it's painfully obvious that that was exactly the sort of thing he was trying to get away from?
  - camccann 17y ago
    I don't know if direct contact was made, but they were definitely aware that the internet private eye squad had found their online presences. Names and locations were also found. Like I said, it was kinda creepy. I wouldn't even have been reading about it but... well, I wanted to know if _why was okay. And yes, I realize that even if I didn't actively participate, watching others do it doesn't necessarily make me blameless. Make of that what you will, but I do encourage everyone to not pursue the matter further. He's fine, don't worry about that, let's show him some respect.
  - randallsquared 17y ago
    It was only painfully obvious after someone had done the detective work to verify that he hadn't suddenly died in real life. Obvious in retrospect is easy...
    - eli 17y ago
      It's rather poetic to think that when you die in real life, all your digital work vanishes too. But were there people who really thought that's what happened? I hadn't heard about this detective work until just now, but there was never a great mystery in my mind. Not to be a jerk, but I think it was obvious at the time that this was just a person who really valued his privacy.
burke 17y ago
Pseudocide, if you will.

Does anyone know what happened to him? To me it seems like a digital suicide :(

by plaes 17y ago

Does anyone know what happened to him? To me it seems like a digital suicide :(

markmywords 17y ago

I too would like to know. His work was just plain awesome!

jacobolus 17y ago
http://ejohn.org/blog/eulogy-to-_why/ http://ejohn.org/blog/eulogy-to-_why/
- michael_dorfman 17y ago
  An alternate view: http://www.zedshaw.com/blog/2009-08-19.html http://www.zedshaw.com/blog/2009-08-19.html
  - unalone 17y ago
    Zed's an idiot. He made up a fantasy about what he thought _why might be doing, and proceeded to insult _why and generally be a jackass without knowing what he was doing. At the time I commented here saying Zed and _why were foils in many ways. I still believe that. _why was all about encouraging creative expression and absolute artistic freedom, and about making people excited about things. For all that he had a vibrant personality, his work was never about himself. It was about the people he wanted to excite. Zed, meanwhile, is a similarly hard worker, but in Zed's world everything is about Zed and there's a right way and a wrong way to do everything, and Zed is the one who decides. _why was fine with the fact that not everybody wanted to do things his way. Zed's most famous for yelling and belittling other people, this article included. While I respect Zed's intellect and like that he's working for one of my favorite companies, he's juvenile and embodies a lot of the parts of this scene that I despise.
    - jacoblyles 17y ago
      It took a non-negligible amount of work to recreate _why's work in the wake of his disappearance. There's something very much against the engineering ethos in that. It's like burning books or destroying art because you're having a bad day. Sure, Zed has worse marketing than _why's "happy fuzzy" persona, but I agree with him in this case. From the comments on the github page, it looks like tryruby was rewritten, the code was never recovered. It is a bit ironic that the hardest artifacts of _why to recover were the projects aimed at teaching Ruby to children (tryruby and some of the books).
      - deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
      - unalone 17y ago
        The difference between Zed and _why is that _why never believed in an engineering ethos. I wasn't happy that tryruby is so annihilated. The version they recovered still has issues. I tried using it to get my 14-year-old brother into Ruby, and there was too many bugs for him to smoothly guide through it. But at the same time, I know nothing of _why's decision to remove it, and I won't pretend like I know one so that I can bash him. If one day he returns and explains himself and I find him wanting, then I'll criticize him, but I'm not going to spew hate in his direction even if I do. I'm simply grateful for all the things he gave the community, no strings attached. If the day he'd gone we never saw any of his work again, he'd still have made me a better person, inspired me to try things I'd never done. Beyond that he never had a responsibility to me and so I'm not angry. Hell, I'm still discovering new things of his — the music from his old band is playing through on iTunes now, and it's inspired stuff. (I could further the comparison by saying that Zed writes a lot about practicing guitar, but the music he's made is derivative; _why's music is haphazard and amateur but it evokes something. But that's not fair to Zed.) As I said, I respect some things about Zed, and if he didn't spend his time being an arse to other people I'd respect him a lot more. But all the time he spends being negative really irks me, especially when it's targeted towards one of the most positive people in the community he left so violently.
        17y ago

camccann 17y ago

A few people did some internet stalking back when he first disappeared and tracked down some of his real-life friends and family. Creepy, yes, but also enough to determine that the man behind the pseudonym is alive and well. And, since one of the suspected reasons for why he chose to disappear as he did was "people prying into his real-life non-_why identity", it's probably best if we leave it at that.

eli 17y ago
Wow, what kind of jerk would call up his family when it's painfully obvious that that was exactly the sort of thing he was trying to get away from?
- camccann 17y ago
  I don't know if direct contact was made, but they were definitely aware that the internet private eye squad had found their online presences. Names and locations were also found. Like I said, it was kinda creepy. I wouldn't even have been reading about it but... well, I wanted to know if _why was okay. And yes, I realize that even if I didn't actively participate, watching others do it doesn't necessarily make me blameless. Make of that what you will, but I do encourage everyone to not pursue the matter further. He's fine, don't worry about that, let's show him some respect.
- randallsquared 17y ago
  It was only painfully obvious after someone had done the detective work to verify that he hadn't suddenly died in real life. Obvious in retrospect is easy...
  - eli 17y ago
    It's rather poetic to think that when you die in real life, all your digital work vanishes too. But were there people who really thought that's what happened? I hadn't heard about this detective work until just now, but there was never a great mystery in my mind. Not to be a jerk, but I think it was obvious at the time that this was just a person who really valued his privacy.

burke 17y ago

Pseudocide, if you will.