"... vastly over-stating the contributions of this one guy in HN comments ..." You are right to be cynical but this time I think you missed the mark. The auth

"... vastly over-stating the contributions of this one guy in HN comments ..." You are right to be cynical but this time I think you missed the mark. The author gives numerous examples of work "Why" produced. Their merit cannot be taken away. Just as important is the effect "Why" had on the Ruby community and other programmers who I imagine are just as or even bigger cynics. There's John Resig, Zed Shaw and Fábio Akita. I've read their blogs, looked at some of their code. They don't appear sycophantic in their ideas or writing. But I don't know any of these people. But I do know @DrNic ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/tags/drnic http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/tags/drnic I met him last year at a talk he did on "Scriptable tools" ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/3409666921/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/3409666921/ Nic is the most cynical begger I've met - talking and interrupting the talk after his, ripping into a greeny with a largely sympathetic audience. Questions and comments both insightful and rudely cynical at the same time. I didn't sense the audience resenting this. It pushed the speaker to clarify his ideas. So I artfully disagree. "Why" had a tangible positive effect in the core Ruby developer community who by nature are as skeptical as you can be - and then some.