4 ms·

>A few million creative artists would probably disagree without you, some violently so There are a lot of creative people, for sure. Discussing whether X is mo

by nir 16y ago

>A few million creative artists would probably disagree without you, some violently so There are a lot of creative people, for sure. Discussing whether X is more creative than Y is meaningless. Ultimately it's about how X or Y's work resonates with you. >Yes, it was nice to have him around, no, he's not that special. Have a look at Alan Kay for an example of someone who is special. "In my opinion". Personally, I've seen few things in any field that struck me as comparable in originality to The Poignant Guide, for example. I would never imagine a language tutorial that would be essentially a cartoon, and a pretty brilliant one at that, accompanied by a soundtrack - but also a working online console and eventually a whole new programming language. Looking at his entire body work, it's impressive this was all done by one person, but it's incredible that this person actually didn't make any attempts to reap financial rewards from it, in the age where everyone with a few blog posts behind him is telling you "you should follow me on Twitter".

jacquesm 16y ago
> I would never imagine a language tutorial that would be essentially a cartoon, and a pretty brilliant one at that, Have a look at the early TRS-80 manuals, they were exactly that, no soundtrack though, it was on 'dead tree' format for want of a bit-mapped display on that particular computer. That does not diminish what _why did but it is not quite as original as you may think. > Looking at his entire body work, it's impressive this was all done by one person, Absolutely. > but it's incredible that this person actually didn't make any attempts to reap financial rewards from it, Agreed, but he's hardly alone in that, the open source world is full of people that have given an enormous chunk of their lives without getting much or even anything in return. > in the age where everyone with a few blog posts behind him is telling you "you should follow me on Twitter". And on that we also agree. In fact the whole 'get rich quick' mentality can take a running jump as far as I'm concerned.
- nir 16y ago
  TRS80 comics (at least the ones I find online) aren't tutorials, more like a Radio Shack/DC comics marketing collaboration. Certainly a lot of people donate their time to open source projects. Many of them do it while being paid by a company or a university to work on that code. Many others later us it as a base to start companies or consulting careers. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but _why did stand out, especially among the Ruby community in the mid '00s, as someone who could easily make $200/hr consulting, and chose not to do so. I don't know many (of course there are some) who willingly choose that path. Otherwise we pretty much agree :)
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    I'm referring to a very wide (at least 45 cm wide by 25 high) volume of about 200 pages that came with those first machines to teach you basic. The whole thing was a running cartoon and by the end you could write simple programs. The Radio Shack/DC comics stuff is definitely not what I refer to. And we don't know if why didn't choose to do $200/hr consulting jobs, he may have done the _why thing on the side.

by nir 16y ago

jacquesm 16y ago

> I would never imagine a language tutorial that would be essentially a cartoon, and a pretty brilliant one at that, Have a look at the early TRS-80 manuals, they were exactly that, no soundtrack though, it was on 'dead tree' format for want of a bit-mapped display on that particular computer. That does not diminish what _why did but it is not quite as original as you may think. > Looking at his entire body work, it's impressive this was all done by one person, Absolutely. > but it's incredible that this person actually didn't make any attempts to reap financial rewards from it, Agreed, but he's hardly alone in that, the open source world is full of people that have given an enormous chunk of their lives without getting much or even anything in return. > in the age where everyone with a few blog posts behind him is telling you "you should follow me on Twitter". And on that we also agree. In fact the whole 'get rich quick' mentality can take a running jump as far as I'm concerned.

nir 16y ago
TRS80 comics (at least the ones I find online) aren't tutorials, more like a Radio Shack/DC comics marketing collaboration. Certainly a lot of people donate their time to open source projects. Many of them do it while being paid by a company or a university to work on that code. Many others later us it as a base to start companies or consulting careers. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but _why did stand out, especially among the Ruby community in the mid '00s, as someone who could easily make $200/hr consulting, and chose not to do so. I don't know many (of course there are some) who willingly choose that path. Otherwise we pretty much agree :)
- jacquesm 16y ago
  I'm referring to a very wide (at least 45 cm wide by 25 high) volume of about 200 pages that came with those first machines to teach you basic. The whole thing was a running cartoon and by the end you could write simple programs. The Radio Shack/DC comics stuff is definitely not what I refer to. And we don't know if why didn't choose to do $200/hr consulting jobs, he may have done the _why thing on the side.