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Heartwarming... One of the first programs I ever wrote, on a PET-2001, was a crude running elephant. Later I made it controllable with the arrow keys. Why did

• derefr 16y ago
  With his level of passion, I can't believe that he doesn't want to come back. I think he's just giving us all a time-out from playing his wonderful game, to teach us to be good. Although, if he now distrusts the Ruby community too badly, he might be waiting for a new language espousing "programmer enjoyment" to sprout up...
  • danieldon 16y ago
    _why left open source, and there's no evidence he "distrusts the Ruby community." His last tweets waxed philosophically about software progress in general and there's a suggestion in the poignant guide that he had considered dropping his persona in this way for years. If there was anything negative that prompted him to drop out, it was most likely the posting of his name, something that has more to do with his then growing fame and crappy aspects to internet culture than anything else.
  • jacoblyles 16y ago
    _Why had an abnormal personality. He had a busy internal dialogue. He acted for his own reasons, and I don't think we will guess at them. Humans understand new things by comparison to what they already know, so fresh souls are often misunderstood and misclassified.
    • andrewvc 16y ago
      I think you nailed it. I'll add to that though. often, when people die (and _why did in a sense die), people view everything they did through rose colored lenses. I'm with the majority in HNers in this thread so far, still in awe of _why, however, let's not forget the tough lessons his disappearance taught us. While I greatly appreciated everything _why did for the community and think he truly was an amazing person, it's clear in my mind that the way he left the community, without notice that he would take down his sites and code, was irresponsible. He had the right to do what he did, but that doesn't make it ok. I'm not angry at _why, more sad. I assume, given his eccentricities, that there was no malicious intent behind it, which is why I find it merely tragic. However, his leaving was a powerful reminder of the responsibilities open source software authors have. If you make code free, you should make sure it stays available within reason, and if you use free software, you should take _why's disappearance as an object lesson.
      • steveklabnik 16y ago
        It was also lucky that the Ruby community had adopted git so thoroughly; the only reason we still have his works is due to DVCS.
      • derefr 16y ago
        > the way he left the community, without notice that he would take down his sites and code, was irresponsible ...but that was exactly what he was from the beginning; I don't believe he ever considered himself to be an "open source software author." He said himself (in the article, even) that he was only ever messing around—it was our fault for depending so heavily on what he intended to be either "art" or "toys", but never "work." His ethic (really an aesthetic, as he was an aesthete) worked well for those who were with him from the start, but it was entirely incompatible with the premise of "software engineering." The only people sore from his loss were those on the outside looking in.
  • jdietrich 16y ago
    I think _why has much bigger vision than just programming. My personal theory is that he realised that he had reached a plateau, diminishing returns had kicked in and it was time for him to move on. I'm sure he's out there somewhere now working on his next little revolution. I think the only lesson he's trying to teach us is to take things less seriously, to accept transience and impermanence, to realise that nearly all of us are just making pictures in the sand. Almost everything we do will one day disappear without trace. We might as well get used to the idea. Chunky bacon.