5 ms·

Though it would be considered a bit rude by many, somewhere I understand the philosophy of _why. It would be better to kill something fast than watch it wither

Though it would be considered a bit rude by many, somewhere I understand the philosophy of _why. It would be better to kill something fast than watch it wither away and die.[especially when they are close to your heart]. if _why had left the code in place, it might have withered [like say mongrel] This post and zed shaw's tweets on the same subject are so stark in contrast.I think I finally understand why zed shaw is so unloved by many. It is because of lack of respect for someone else's choices. Edit: http://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/3412128128 http://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/3412128128 _why preached "peace & love" and "ruby's nice" and then the second he's outed he rips down gear people depend on. He's a dick. http://zedshaw.com/blog/2009-07-13.html http://zedshaw.com/blog/2009-07-13.html "I believe that whatever the author wants to do with his or her works is their right. They wrote it, despite everyone telling them it wouldn’t work. They slaved over it rather than going out with friends. They debugged it, and wrote documentation for it so everyone else could use it. They may have even spent a part of their time promoting it and helping people with it. All for free, and for whatever reason they choose."

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
unalone 17y ago
There're a lot of jokes making _why and Zed out to be foils today, and in a lot of ways they're true. Zed's very no-nonsense. He's spent a lot of time manufacturing an image of himself. He lets himself get carried away and angry and he's been searching for a community he likes, butting heads all the way. _why, on the other hand, was truly bizarre. I never got into his blog, for instance, because it seemed frequently nonsensical and more than a little rambling. Despite that (or, more likely, because of it), he seemed almost always happy with whatever it was he did. I only ever really got into TryRuby and his Poignant Guide, but they were the only two guides to programming I've played with. There was a giddiness in his work that I haven't found in other coding. It's comparable to the moods of artists in other fields. Zed's argument against _why is that what he did was impractical and unproductive. That's what made _why as a persona, though: Zed is a hacker, _why was more of an artist, pretenses and unreliability and all. It's left-brained versus right-brained; it's also why there's a definite rift between the people who like _why and the people who think the guy was raving mad and immature.
- boundlessdreamz 17y ago
  Zed Shaw(and many others) may not agree with what _why did but what _why did was well within his rights and hence there is no reason to disrespect him. What disappoints me is that Zed shaw(and some in the original thread) quickly declaring _why a dick. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it - Voltaire". Where is that spirit ?
  - unalone 17y ago
    I agree entirely. While I'll miss _why, he had the right to do what he did and I'm a bit offended that people would presume to tell him otherwise.
  - pyre 17y ago
    Huh? KKK members have every right to express their racist attitudes, but I'll still call them dicks. "You have every right to do what you did" and "I think what you did was an asshole move" are not exclusive statements.
    - unalone 17y ago
      I understand your point, but you just compared some guy removing his freely-released code from the Internet to a gang of people who went around lynching black people.
      - llimllib 17y ago
        No he didn't (mature, right?), he was just showing the obvious flaw in the argument by taking it to its extreme. He did not in any way compayre _why to the KKK.
        anigbrowl 17y ago
        His and your analysis of the argument is incorrect, and I'm surprised you'd endorse such a Godwin-violating^ argument. ^ Yes, I know the KKK are not technically Nazis. Leaving personalities out of it, there is a big qualitative difference between ceasing to share something (in the worst case, undirected passive-aggressive behavior) and actively attacking other people (in the worst case, highly directed active-aggressive behavior).
einarvollset 17y ago
Now wouldn't it be hilarious if Zed Shaw and _why were the same person? I know, they're not, but damn..
- kenshi 17y ago
  ...especially if they were the same person in a Fight Club kind of way. Zed sleeps and _why comes out to play... or vice versa.
  - stcredzero 17y ago
    That would make for a fantastic nerd-Swede tribute film!
    - mansfiem 17y ago
      What the hell is a nerd-Swede tribute film? That's not funny.
      - InnocentB 17y ago
        "Swede" is a term from the movie Be Kind Rewind. It refers to homemade remakes of movies.
  - AndrewO 17y ago
    The first rule of Code Club, is you do not tweet about Code Club!
bballant 17y ago
Good work (not necessarily "hard work" ;-)) pointing out Zed's hypocrisy. I love how _why considered code art. I loved it when he wrote out his code by hand and animated the background of the text. It made the code seem magical, which it sometimes is.
pyre 17y ago
Parsing through that led me to this: http://whoiswhytheluckystiff.wordpress.com/ http://whoiswhytheluckystiff.wordpress.com/ Which is what Zed is referring to when he says "the second he's outed."
- jcl 17y ago
  ...which is odd, since it was hardly the "second he's outed". The post was made over a month ago. We have no guarantee the post and his disappearance are actually related. Curiously, an old Wikipedia edit identifies the same place of employment, three years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Why_the_lucky_stiff&oldid=75566301 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Why_the_lucky_stif...
RyanMcGreal 17y ago
There's more to Zed's response than that. Consider the following: http://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/3414550229 http://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/3414550229 "Actually, I didn't see a lot of sympathy from _why when I was going through similar tough times. In fact, the inverse." And: http://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/3414567310 http://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/3414567310 "Totally jealous, I wish I could leave the ghetto as completely. :-)" What comes off as gruffness, I think, overlies a complex substratum of hurt and ambivalence.
- unalone 17y ago
  Of course. Zed's a complex human being like all of us. He and _why have a history. I recall _why delivered a pretty twisted put-down to Zed once, the sort where you were more confused than hurt. And they both had a unique position in the RoR community. Doesn't change the fact that Zed's cursing out _why and acting like a jerk. He's not just being a jerk, but he is being a jerk.
tptacek 17y ago
If you're wondering why Zed Shaw is always at the top of HN whenever he blogs about his least favorite kind of steak sauce, this is why. He writes some random, moronic, offensive comment on Twitter, and we can't shut up about it. There ought to be a word for this tactic he's using. I think I'll coin one. Zed Shaw is a message board goblin. He's goblining you.
- shib71 17y ago
  The next stage in Troll evolution: from polluting other people's discussions to creating negative meme's.
stcredzero 17y ago
They wrote it, despite everyone telling them it wouldn’t work. Why are we programmers, as a group, so negative? When Ernest Lawrence was going on-and-on about the Cyclotron, other physicists got tired of him, but they told him to get off his ass and build it, not that he was an ignorant git and it wouldn't work. Why is it that every interesting idea in programming is met by someone saying it wouldn't work with the supporting logic inversely proportional to the nastiness of the tone?
- michaelneale 17y ago
  I would deeply love to know the answer to that question. And why do I feel so angry about thing like that?
- sunir 17y ago
  I suspect it's because programming is an intense meritocracy, but a meritocracy governed by the intense subjectiveness of how smart your peers think you are rather than some more objective criterion like published papers or citations. Therefore, to some programmers, if someone else is likely to do something more brilliant than you, it's motivating to stop them. Especially so, since if you are successful in stopping them, your own perceived merit goes up as the smarter dog in the room. This game is reinforced by the game of karma on many programmer discussion sites. I have to admit, I succomb, as I want my karma to cross 200 so I can downvote. It's a stupid goal, but my ego is prone to it. P.S. Please note that science is also prone to this behaviour, and programming and science have the same solution to the problem: actually building a verifiable { experiment / correct theorem / more efficient algorithm }. cf. Science in Action by Bruno Latour (1987), which I tried to summarize on http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SocialConstructionOfScience http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SocialConstructionOfScie...
  - stcredzero 17y ago
    I suspect it's because programming is an intense meritocracy, but a meritocracy governed by the intense subjectiveness of how smart your peers think you are But then, why are the objections so often brain-dead!?

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

unalone 17y ago

There're a lot of jokes making _why and Zed out to be foils today, and in a lot of ways they're true. Zed's very no-nonsense. He's spent a lot of time manufacturing an image of himself. He lets himself get carried away and angry and he's been searching for a community he likes, butting heads all the way. _why, on the other hand, was truly bizarre. I never got into his blog, for instance, because it seemed frequently nonsensical and more than a little rambling. Despite that (or, more likely, because of it), he seemed almost always happy with whatever it was he did. I only ever really got into TryRuby and his Poignant Guide, but they were the only two guides to programming I've played with. There was a giddiness in his work that I haven't found in other coding. It's comparable to the moods of artists in other fields. Zed's argument against _why is that what he did was impractical and unproductive. That's what made _why as a persona, though: Zed is a hacker, _why was more of an artist, pretenses and unreliability and all. It's left-brained versus right-brained; it's also why there's a definite rift between the people who like _why and the people who think the guy was raving mad and immature.

boundlessdreamz 17y ago
Zed Shaw(and many others) may not agree with what _why did but what _why did was well within his rights and hence there is no reason to disrespect him. What disappoints me is that Zed shaw(and some in the original thread) quickly declaring _why a dick. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it - Voltaire". Where is that spirit ?
- unalone 17y ago
  I agree entirely. While I'll miss _why, he had the right to do what he did and I'm a bit offended that people would presume to tell him otherwise.
- pyre 17y ago
  Huh? KKK members have every right to express their racist attitudes, but I'll still call them dicks. "You have every right to do what you did" and "I think what you did was an asshole move" are not exclusive statements.
  - unalone 17y ago
    I understand your point, but you just compared some guy removing his freely-released code from the Internet to a gang of people who went around lynching black people.
    - llimllib 17y ago
      No he didn't (mature, right?), he was just showing the obvious flaw in the argument by taking it to its extreme. He did not in any way compayre _why to the KKK.
      - anigbrowl 17y ago
        His and your analysis of the argument is incorrect, and I'm surprised you'd endorse such a Godwin-violating^ argument. ^ Yes, I know the KKK are not technically Nazis. Leaving personalities out of it, there is a big qualitative difference between ceasing to share something (in the worst case, undirected passive-aggressive behavior) and actively attacking other people (in the worst case, highly directed active-aggressive behavior).

einarvollset 17y ago

Now wouldn't it be hilarious if Zed Shaw and _why were the same person? I know, they're not, but damn..

kenshi 17y ago
...especially if they were the same person in a Fight Club kind of way. Zed sleeps and _why comes out to play... or vice versa.
- stcredzero 17y ago
  That would make for a fantastic nerd-Swede tribute film!
  - mansfiem 17y ago
    What the hell is a nerd-Swede tribute film? That's not funny.
    - InnocentB 17y ago
      "Swede" is a term from the movie Be Kind Rewind. It refers to homemade remakes of movies.
- AndrewO 17y ago
  The first rule of Code Club, is you do not tweet about Code Club!

bballant 17y ago

Good work (not necessarily "hard work" ;-)) pointing out Zed's hypocrisy. I love how _why considered code art. I loved it when he wrote out his code by hand and animated the background of the text. It made the code seem magical, which it sometimes is.

pyre 17y ago

Parsing through that led me to this: http://whoiswhytheluckystiff.wordpress.com/ http://whoiswhytheluckystiff.wordpress.com/ Which is what Zed is referring to when he says "the second he's outed."

jcl 17y ago
...which is odd, since it was hardly the "second he's outed". The post was made over a month ago. We have no guarantee the post and his disappearance are actually related. Curiously, an old Wikipedia edit identifies the same place of employment, three years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Why_the_lucky_stiff&oldid=75566301 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Why_the_lucky_stif...

RyanMcGreal 17y ago

There's more to Zed's response than that. Consider the following: http://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/3414550229 http://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/3414550229 "Actually, I didn't see a lot of sympathy from _why when I was going through similar tough times. In fact, the inverse." And: http://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/3414567310 http://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/3414567310 "Totally jealous, I wish I could leave the ghetto as completely. :-)" What comes off as gruffness, I think, overlies a complex substratum of hurt and ambivalence.

unalone 17y ago
Of course. Zed's a complex human being like all of us. He and _why have a history. I recall _why delivered a pretty twisted put-down to Zed once, the sort where you were more confused than hurt. And they both had a unique position in the RoR community. Doesn't change the fact that Zed's cursing out _why and acting like a jerk. He's not just being a jerk, but he is being a jerk.

tptacek 17y ago

If you're wondering why Zed Shaw is always at the top of HN whenever he blogs about his least favorite kind of steak sauce, this is why. He writes some random, moronic, offensive comment on Twitter, and we can't shut up about it. There ought to be a word for this tactic he's using. I think I'll coin one. Zed Shaw is a message board goblin. He's goblining you.

shib71 17y ago
The next stage in Troll evolution: from polluting other people's discussions to creating negative meme's.

stcredzero 17y ago

They wrote it, despite everyone telling them it wouldn’t work. Why are we programmers, as a group, so negative? When Ernest Lawrence was going on-and-on about the Cyclotron, other physicists got tired of him, but they told him to get off his ass and build it, not that he was an ignorant git and it wouldn't work. Why is it that every interesting idea in programming is met by someone saying it wouldn't work with the supporting logic inversely proportional to the nastiness of the tone?

michaelneale 17y ago
I would deeply love to know the answer to that question. And why do I feel so angry about thing like that?
sunir 17y ago
I suspect it's because programming is an intense meritocracy, but a meritocracy governed by the intense subjectiveness of how smart your peers think you are rather than some more objective criterion like published papers or citations. Therefore, to some programmers, if someone else is likely to do something more brilliant than you, it's motivating to stop them. Especially so, since if you are successful in stopping them, your own perceived merit goes up as the smarter dog in the room. This game is reinforced by the game of karma on many programmer discussion sites. I have to admit, I succomb, as I want my karma to cross 200 so I can downvote. It's a stupid goal, but my ego is prone to it. P.S. Please note that science is also prone to this behaviour, and programming and science have the same solution to the problem: actually building a verifiable { experiment / correct theorem / more efficient algorithm }. cf. Science in Action by Bruno Latour (1987), which I tried to summarize on http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SocialConstructionOfScience http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?SocialConstructionOfScie...
- stcredzero 17y ago
  I suspect it's because programming is an intense meritocracy, but a meritocracy governed by the intense subjectiveness of how smart your peers think you are But then, why are the objections so often brain-dead!?