11 ms·
_why is no more
- sunaku 17y ago_why's actions remind me of a quote from Hagakure: "In the Kamigata area, they have a sort of tiered lunchbox they use for a single day when flower viewing. Upon returning, they throw them away, trampling them underfoot. The end is important in all things." (emphasis added) Rest in peace, _why! You were but a hero, but now you are a legend.
- Jeremysr 17y agoI just noticed that _why apparently deleted his twitter account. I then found that that wasn't all he deleted: http://twitter.com/_why http://twitter.com/_why http://github.com/why http://github.com/why http://whytheluckystiff.net/ http://whytheluckystiff.net/ http://poignantguide.net/ http://poignantguide.net/ http://hackety.org/ http://hackety.org/ http://shoooes.net/ http://shoooes.net/ All disappeared... For those who don't know who I'm talking about: http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_the_lucky_stiff http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_the_lucky_stiff
- davelee 17y agoI wanted to try Potion, it might be too late now.
- burke 17y agohttp://github.com/whymirror/potion/tree http://github.com/whymirror/potion/tree
- loincloth 17y agoWhoa. Scary.
- defunkt 17y agohttp://hacketyhack.net/ http://hacketyhack.net/ also This is a sad day.
- pavelludiq 17y agohttp://tryruby.hobix.com/ http://tryruby.hobix.com/ too. THIS IS BAD!
- dylanz 17y agoIndeed. All languages need an online app like this!
- sah 17y agoThat's my mission with http://codepad.org/ http://codepad.org/
- benoitc2 17y agoMaybe you could try http://friendpaste.com http://friendpaste.com :)
- benatkin 17y agodoes this run code? take another look at codepad. It's not just a pastebin.
- benoitc2 17y agotake a look on friendpaste this isn't just a pastebin too. For code running. Yes I missed the point. Maybe because I don't see how it could works on most code if you can't import your own modules. I would be happy to participate to such project. Is sourcecode of codepad around ?
- benatkin 17y agoOK, it's a pastebin with embedding and revisions. How is that not "just a pastebin"? Oh, nevermind, it's a #nosql site. I withdraw my argument.
- 17y ago
- judofyr 17y agohttp://redhanded.hobix.com/ http://redhanded.hobix.com/ too :(
- fizx 17y agoGoogle cache is still live: http://74.125.155.132/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=cache:http://twitter.com/_why&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 http://74.125.155.132/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&... Edit: Also, twitter search results: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%40_why http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%40_why Notably: racheltostring: RT: @_why: programming is rather thankless. u see your works become replaced by superior ones in a year. unable to run at all in a few more. about 21 hours ago from TwitterFox
- tremendo 17y agoprogramming is rather thankless... Maybe he read http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=771057 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=771057 in Re: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=771013 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=771013 ?
- pygy 17y agoHe's got humor, you know. That pun chain doesn't seem offensive to me. Thanks for putting up the link.
- basugasubaku 17y agoHe was (understandably) a bit sensitive about new works displacing his. He almost seemed to suspect some sort of conspiracy against Hpricot: "Clearly, the benchmarks you see on Ruby Inside are skewed to favor Nokogiri... Why not treat Hpricot fairly and use it properly in the benchmarks? It reeks of something." http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/181699 http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/181699
- petercooper 17y agoAs the editor of Ruby Inside, I can confirm we (or me, as author of the piece) were not involved in any conspiracy or malicious intent against Hpricot. Heck, Why even wrote the foreword for my book :) Further, the benchmarks we republished were not by us, but just a screenshot of benchmarks shared by the creator of Nokogiri.
- pnomolos 17y ago:( Sad indeed.
- sho 17y agoThat was pretty immature, to delete the repos as well. Sure, nuke your Twitter, who cares. But people might have been depending on the repos; it's a breach of trust IMO. Not impressed.
- arghnoname 17y agoYeah I think so too. My initial reaction was that this is his right, which technically I'm sure it is. It does call into question an unspoken rule of open source though, which is you can abandon your stuff if you want, but don't try to remove all traces, even if that is ultimately a futile act.
- jamesbritt 17y agoOTOH, I have to believe there are many people with copies of that code.
- noodle 17y agoassuming that this is a tantrum, yes. not impressed, only really detrimental. at least have the courtesy to leave your stuff as it is for the people who have and will benefit from it, instead of scrubbing it all clean. on the other hand, if this is a case of someone managing to crack/guess/etc his passwords and just wants to do some malicious damage, that would be too bad.
- donw 17y agoAgreed; it's really childish.
- patio11 17y agoThat was pretty immature, to delete the repos as well. They were git repos, right? I am new to git, but my understanding is you pretty much have to type git clone --i-dont-want-a-full-copy-of-the-repository-please-screw-me-over-if-the-master-vanishes to be in a position where you are "dependent" on the code (i.e. have looked at it, ever) and do not have a full copy of the entire project extending to the mists of prehistory. [Edit: apparently the actual command is git clone --depth (some number) I like my version better.]
- mtodd 17y agoHoly shit... _why is why I'm a Ruby developer to this day, especially the Poignant Guide. So very sad.
- tcoffeep 17y agoSame here :(
- mr_justin 17y agoWhy is it sad? Because he deleted his accounts? Or are you assuming something bad has happened to him and his accounts where deleted by somebody else? Why strikes me as the kind of person who would delete his online presence on a whim, just because it would be fun.
- Quarrelsome 17y agoIt is sad because the thought of no more _why is a sad thought. I'd love to see more of his books in the future, they were mind blowingly cool.
- mbrubeck 17y agoIt's sad because (if the sites don't come back) it'll be harder for other people to find and enjoy his work that I enjoyed. And it's sad to think that maybe he won't come back and publish more awesome stuff. (But when I think about it, I doubt that someone with _why's drive to create will be able to keep from sharing for very long.)
- masonbrowne 17y agoI was already digging into Ruby when I found out about _why... but he's definitely a big chunk of the reason I stuck with it for so long, AND served as a good vehicle for evangelizing Ruby to new people...
- TheProkrammer 17y agoTHE PURGES HAVE BEGUN! SAVE YOURSELVES! Seriously though, I hope he's /okay/....
- donw 17y agoGood point; hopefully he's not suicidal. Anybody know the guy personally?
- technomancy 17y agoNobody knows much about _why. He's always been a mystery.
- octover 17y agoDefinitely there are people that know _why. He has family and friends and such. He just is unique in his style and doesn't want to be famous for his art, he wants the art itself to be famous.
- jamesbritt 17y agoRip it up and start again.
- r1cky 17y agohacked?
- rneufeld 17y agoDomains are still up and registered to him... Strange indeed. Registrar..: gkg.net (http://register.gkg.net/) Domain Name: WHYTHELUCKYSTIFF.NET Created on..............: 03-JAN-2002 Expires on..............: 03-JAN-2014 Record last updated on..: 24-DEC-2008 Status..................: ACTIVE Registrar..: gkg.net (http://register.gkg.net/) Domain Name: HACKETYHACK.NET Created on..............: 25-FEB-2007 Expires on..............: 25-FEB-2010 Record last updated on..: 24-DEC-2008 Status..................: ACTIVE Registrar..: gkg.net (http://register.gkg.net/) Domain Name: POIGNANTGUIDE.NET Created on..............: 20-NOV-2003 Expires on..............: 20-NOV-2010 Record last updated on..: 24-DEC-2008 Status..................: ACTIVE
- andyleclair 17y agoMaybe he's planning for a big star-spangled blowout and is getting us ready for it? Kind of like if MJ had jumped out of his coffin at the Staples Center to start singing Thriller?
- timinman 17y agoActually this might happen, sometimes his sites go down before a new release, but what puzzles me is github.
- digitalhobbit 17y agoReally hope he's ok...
- antipax 17y agoThere's a phone number in his whois records for his domain names... though calling it would be a just a little creepy.
- mudge 17y agoI'll call him.
- Arubis 17y agoAs great as it is to have a community that cares about an individual, _why was very happy to stay anonymous, and a few comments here purport that his sudden disappearance resulted from someone penetrating that anonymity. If that's the case, calling him (assuming that number is accurate) could be counterproductive.
- Jem 17y agoBut the supposed outing happened over a month ago. I doubt he'd wait this long if that were the reason for his disappearance. I don't know the guy, and am not involved in the Ruby community. Nonetheless, that someone would call to make sure he's OK speaks volumes to me of his presence on the Internet.
- PieSquared 17y agoDo you mind saying what happened when you called?
- duairc 17y agoI just tried calling that number, I got an automated response from "<something... beginning with a?> Solutions" with a pretty generic "press 1 for sales", "press 2 for customer care"-type set of options. That was a bit disappointing, I really hope he's okay...
- tremendo 17y agoThat's really odd. Just yesterday he had picked up on Twitter again after a several-days/weeks hiatus.
- daveungerer 17y agoI managed to dig up a PDF copy of his Poignant Guide to Ruby over here: http://www.ember.co.nz/resources/whys-poignant-guide-to-ruby/ http://www.ember.co.nz/resources/whys-poignant-guide-to-ruby... Anyone who hasn't checked it out yet, do yourself a favour. And for the rest of us, who would like to remember this anonymous creator of cartoon foxes. Let's hope it's just a quarter life crisis and that he's back soon. Or that he finds something else that makes him happier than programming.
- geek4christ 17y agoSomeone has also created a github project to archive his work: http://github.com/binary42/why-archive/tree/master http://github.com/binary42/why-archive/tree/master It currently has a pdf of the guide.
- tcoffeep 17y agoI wish there was a way to get chapter 7 aside from going onto the Wayback machine. I really dislike travelling into the past. Uncomfortable seats.
- MrMatt 17y agoI don't know about anyone else, but I'm going to really miss the soundtrack that went along with the Guide. Does anyone have it?
- cpach 17y agohttp://web.archive.org/web/20071018035725/poignantguide.net/sdtrk/ http://web.archive.org/web/20071018035725/poignantguide.net/...
- carbon8 17y agoFWIW, I noticed that all of his sites were down for a period sunday night, too. I figured he was just doing something on the server and everything was back up the next day. I didn't check his github or twitter, though.
- random-passerby 17y agoCouldn't possibly be that he's fed up with Open Source and the ruby community...
- gcb 17y agohe did post some PHP projects lately....
- TheProkrammer 17y agoEven if he is, taking down ANY trace of your online presence is highly unusual.
- rcoder 17y ago_why has always been an unusual guy. He has always prized his pseudonymity online, so I'm honestly not entirely shocked to see that he has decided to simply pack it up and move on. It's a sad day for all of us, but I hope and trust that he has good reasons for this decision. His contributions to the world of Ruby and programming-as-art will not be soon forgotten.
- TheProkrammer 17y agoWell true, and he likely cultivated his anonymity for just such an occasion... His legend will only grow...
- mosburger 17y agoSomeone has already edited his Wikipedia page to mention his online disappearance.
- ejc 17y agoWhy the Lucky Stiff has become Why the [deprecated] Stiff. http://twitpic.com/ehkoy http://twitpic.com/ehkoy
- tylerhunt 17y agoJudging by this, it looks like his account was hacked: http://twitpic.com/ehm2h http://twitpic.com/ehm2h.
- zck 17y agoAssuming that was his account (it seems like he'd be more likely to register _why), this is consistent with him deleting his account, and someone pouncing on the now-free username -- note that this account was created today.
- thenduks 17y agoJust fyi, his GitHub account is/was 'why' and not '_why'. Wiki's are still there: http://wiki.github.com/why/shoes http://wiki.github.com/why/shoes, http://wiki.github.com/why/hpricot http://wiki.github.com/why/hpricot, etc.
- doki_pen 17y agoI think anyone could have created a new account with the name _why after he left.
- blaaaah 17y agoOkay folks, let's not overreact. Odds are all of his sites are running on the same host, so someone screwing around could take them all down once inside. And if his twitter account used the same password...
- apotheon 17y agoMaybe he used the same password at PerlMonks: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/security/?p=2048 http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/security/?p=2048
- timinman 17y ago_why got me back into programming and into ruby, first with "Try Ruby!" in the browser and later Hackety Hack. When I asked if I could use hackety to build a web app, he steered me toward rails. I've used tons of his library, especially hpricot. You're an important part of this community, _why. I hope you're not saying goodbye.
- timinman 17y ago_why got me back into programming and into ruby, first with "Try Ruby!" in the browser and later Hackety Hack. When I asked if I could use hackety to build a web app, he steered me toward rails. I've used tons of his library, especially hpricot. You're an important part of this community, _why. I hope you're not saying goodbye.
- dazmax 17y agoSomeone outed him here: http://whoiswhytheluckystiff.wordpress.com/ http://whoiswhytheluckystiff.wordpress.com/
- pol 17y agoWhat a mean-spirited thing to do to someone who just wanted to stay anonymous. It makes me sad and angry. If this is the reason _why decided to pick up and leave, I understand it. We have his code, it will live on. Perhaps he will return in another guise.
- imbaczek 17y agomean-spirited? he gave the internet a challenge and somebody took it up, that's all. oh, and it doesn't have to be his real name, too.
- astine 17y agoDid he literally put out a challenge or do you actually see a person's privacy as a game?
- moe 17y agoThe wikipedia page shows an image of him apparently giving a public speech. If his privacy was so precious to him I don't think he would do things like that. Hence I would say this was just a little game - and he lost.
- astine 17y agoIf his privacy was so precious to him I don't think he would do things like that. But you don't know, and neither do I. It looks like someone played this game, and we lost.
- watt 17y agoprivacy must be respected, and actually should be enforced by everybody, including you. meaning: even if you know him, you should pretend that he is anonymous person, disconnecting the _why persona from the real-life person. for example, if you know him, and you hire him, you still should ignore the on-line _why persona, because for privacy purposes, it is separate, anonymous entity, and you should not connect it to real person. that's what privacy should be.
- geek4christ 17y agoHis last message to us all: @_why: an ascending homage to fish bones. culminating in a delicate canopy of mouse furs. RIP, online presence of _why
- CraigBuchek 17y agoSo long, and thanks for all the fish....
- nevans 17y agoThat sounds a bit more morbid without the context leading up to it: _why: nailing a small ornate gold shelf at arm’s height above the bed for my cat to sit on. i give you: norton’s perch. _why: i should probably have little teeny shelves all leading up to it. with their own miniature portraits or doll banisters or something. strathmeyer: @_why Do cat structures last longer than programming structures? _why: @strathmeyer hard to say, i guess if this feline staircase falls into disrepair, i’ll swap in a circular queue. _why: an ascending homage to fish bones. culminating in a delicate canopy of mouse furs. I will truly miss why's wonderful whimsy. :-(
- jcl 17y agoIt looks like someone is in the process of mirroring what they can find: http://github.com/whymirror http://github.com/whymirror
- wayneb 17y agoomg, who fucking cares. Ruby sucks anyway.
- mloy 17y agoBeing actively anonymous is an open invitation for having your identity discovered and released. He knew it was coming. Deleting any trace of himself was planned, it was not done in heat of passion after being outed.
- TheRealPeteShaw 17y agoYou're all a bunch of suckers
- wrinklz 17y agoThank you. Before you bunch of women get too hysterical, you might want to take a look at this. http://www.todaysbigthing.com/2009/08/11 http://www.todaysbigthing.com/2009/08/11 I'll just assume _why is vacationing in Europe.
- jonknee 17y agoDo you normally delete all your stuff before going on vacation?
- h3h 17y agoJohn Resig has posted a eulogy: http://ejohn.org/blog/eulogy-to-_why/ http://ejohn.org/blog/eulogy-to-_why/
- joeycfan 17y agoHoly crap this is a disaster! This guy is one of lord high masters of the geek art crafts and sciences. Where ever you are Why, I hope you're all right..
- wrinklz 17y agoHe changed his name to _when and is working on perl 6.
- don_gery 17y agothis is clearly jack black. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Whytheluckystiff.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Whytheluc...
- khelll 17y agohttp://whoiswhytheluckystiff.wordpress.com/ http://whoiswhytheluckystiff.wordpress.com/
- brianto2010 17y agoIt seems that not every account was taken down... http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/9c5on/where_is_why/c0c7gm4 http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/9c5on/where_is_...
- mailboxtom 17y agoLet _why-gones be _why-gones
- crapfactory 17y agoyou RoR guys are the sad ones, its all 100% cult of personality. get real he's only one person, if your community can't survive and thrive w/out him, it should die
- banister 17y agofirst up _why was active in more than the RoR community (look at potion, shoes, unholy, etc). Secondly, the majority of comments have been directed towards the dramatic way in which he left and the fact he will be sorely missed.
- _oldhat 17y agoOld hat, but take a very careful look at p27 of Nobody Knows Shoes (pdf version) with the text: So flows hit the end and move down ... If that isn't Kylie ...
- grandalf 17y agoI noticed that people had been ripping on his code a bit lately... I think the Ruby community's embrace of Nokogiri really hurt the man's feelings. _why has been a great contributor to the Ruby community... let's hope he reincarnates himself :)
- DanielStraight 17y agoWell that sort of ruins one's day. I hope everything is alright with him.
- carbon8 17y agoApparently he tweeted this yesterday (quoted from a retweet): "programming is rather thankless. u see your works become replaced by superior ones in a year. unable to run at all in a few more." But _why's contributions are largely irreplaceable. Yeah, software evolves and individual projects might be supplanted by others, but his contributions go way beyond simply writing functioning code.
- arghnoname 17y agoI'm not in the ruby world, so perhaps that's why his contributions have largely been outside my sphere and there may be a great deal I'm unaware of. That said, when someone goes and removes their repositories and whatever other traces of their workproduct they have access to (as is their right), it might make people reluctant to use their products in the future (assuming they return).
- rcoder 17y ago_why has never really made "products" -- in fact, as far as I know, he's never made money from any of the stuff he shared online. (Sales of physical copies of the Poignant Guide may be the one exception to this, but IIRC, he priced it exactly at his cost in order to insure the widest possible distribution.)
- there 17y agoApparently he tweeted this yesterday: "programming is rather thankless. u see your works become replaced by superior ones in a year. unable to run at all in a few more." ironically he wrote "you" on twitter, and you wrote "u" on hn.
- Jeremysr 17y agoIt's from a retweet I believe, where the retweeter replaced "you" with "u", perhaps to fit it into 140 chars.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- ivankirigin 17y agobut not totally gone on twitter: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=RT+%40_why http://search.twitter.com/search?q=RT+%40_why
- hvs 17y agoIs it just me, or does Ruby tend have these "personalities" more than other communities? Seems like the Ruby community focuses a lot on the "rockstar" mentality. I don't spend any time in it to know for sure, though.
- jeremymcanally 17y agoMaybe we just have more interesting people? :)
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- netghost 17y agoHe was more like ruby's Batman than rockstar
- pavelludiq 17y ago_Why is more like a fairy tale character than a rock star. What qualities of his persona do you consider to be rock star qualities?
- bd 17y agohttp://www.flickr.com/photos/scottlaird/31366517/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottlaird/31366517/ :)
- scott_s 17y agoWearing sunglasses during a talk.
- hvs 17y agoBy "rock star" I just meant the lone, dedicated, popular, and generally charismatic developer that has a lot of people talking about how great he/she is. A personality. Again, I don't travel in Ruby circles, so I don't know of _why and can't speak about him personally. I just seem to hear about specific developers from the Ruby circle more than, say, C#.
- mitchellh 17y ago_why was to the ruby community what willy wonka was to chocolate. Maybe, just as the fictional Willy Wonka secluded himself in his chocolate factory for so many years due to competition, _why is simply secluding himself in his programming factory. Deliciously sweet chocolates (or libraries/books/hacketyhack/etc.) will hopefully magically still appear. Maybe _why is simply going to oompa loompa land to get little helpers.
- netghost 17y agoThat's terrible, his code and posts always brightened my day.
- dylanz 17y agoI hope he didn't take my extremely down voted, (apparently) not funny, pun ridden comment on this article too seriously. My puns were harmless, I swear. Any comic drawn in programming text immediately makes me think of _why: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=771013 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=771013 But seriously, reading _why's poignant guide to ruby back in the day was a breath of fresh air coming from Java, and wanting to try something new. His intermingled illustrations and humorous text made a programming book that I actually found enjoyable to read. Also, his contributions in terms of libraries and interesting apps has been awesome. _why: My hats off to you fine sir! May you find goodness on your latest adventures!
- joeycfan 17y agoI remember checking the Guide just for a joke, and on the FIRST PAGE I learned something - that you can delimit ruby numbers with _ for commas - 3_600 is a legal 3600 to ruby.
- jefurii 17y agoi've taken the python path instead of the ruby one, but _why's poignant guide is simply amazing. the only programming book i know of that's both psychedelic and actually useful. well not as a reference, but great for expanding your mind. _why, if you're reading, blessings to you. i thank you for enriching my programming life, and i hope we hear from you again.
- nevans 17y agoI learned ruby via his blog, via his poignant guide, and via the older edition copy of the pitchaxe which he had hosted on his site. I really hope he's not going into seclusion for good. :-(
- tsally 17y agoI suspect some sort of burn out. Honestly the guy was a machine. I remember looking at his commit logs for all of his public Github projects and wondering how he managed it. And mind you, that only accounts for code publicly released and doesn't address any private projects he might have been working on.
- doki_pen 17y agoI'm on the shoes mailing list and he recently made this announcement: Aug 3rd: <quote> Okay, wow, hello, I'm very behind on this list, I hope you will pardon me. I've been away for the summer, taking a break from everything. Well, enough of that, time's up: I hope to concentrate strictly on getting Shoes 3 done. While it's disappointing to see what a poor job I've done with Shoes, I am going to try to do what I can to aright the situation by at least getting us some more speed and stability. (As with all of my projects, it's just a toy experiment which is full of an unpredictable amount of both the sweet and bitter.) My hope is to release the final version by September 7th. Please, if you want something fixed for Shoes 3, it will need to be filed on github, in the issues section. Yes, I think that will work just great. _why </quote> Perhaps this is a publicity stunt to popularize the new and improved Hackety Hack?!
- ch0wda 17y agocamping 4eva!
- masomenos 17y agonote to downvoters: "camping" is a brilliant and bizarre microframework for MVC web apps, courtesy of our friend why.
- ananthrk 17y agoThe title is inappropriate (without really knowing what happened to _why). Only his online identify is no more!
- mbreese 17y agoI don't know about that. I think _why was his online identity... only sometimes he ventured into the real-world to talk to people. So, perhaps it is accurate, since it seems like the online persona has vanished, so in a way _why is no more. Maybe the real person needed to escape from the persona... who knows?
- ananthrk 17y agoTechnically _why is his online persona and I can now understand/analyze your argument. But my first thought after reading the title was "OMG!!". Not fair.
- mechanical_fish 17y agoThis sort of sloppiness makes me really angry. Perhaps that has to do with the day that I woke up to NPR on the radio, and the announcer said "Douglas Adams... bestselling science-fiction writer..." and I immediately knew, before even hearing the next word, that my favorite author was dead. I have flashbacks to that day. And I just had one now. Worst. Linkbait. Ever.
- myobie 17y agoI was playing with hackityhack last night, trying to find a way to contribute to it. It's very important to me that young people have an easy way to learn programming and I think he was really on the right track.
- asenchi 17y agoWow, one of the few personalities to ever remain truly anonymous on the Internet vanishes in a day. Sad sad day. :(
- gaius 17y agoNo, his real name has been on HN before.
- asenchi 17y agoDo you have a link for this, as far as I know, no one knows his real name, job, etc.
- alex_c 17y agoThe link I saw was removed by the poster pretty quickly, out of respect for his privacy. I'm sure you could find it, but... why?
- gaius 17y agoI'm not going to spoil things, but it is findable.
- octover 17y agoDo you think maybe his mom or someone might know his real name? There are people in the community that know his real name, but out of respect for his desired privacy, to let the art itself be famous instead of the artist simply refer to him as _why.
- burke 17y agohttp://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1507505 http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1507505 Though I'm not entirely certain the authors didn't just make up a name to fit the citation style. I don't see any reason why they would have any information the internet at large doens't.
- mcantelon 17y ago
- shaunxcode 17y agoMan - what a bum out. The talk he gave at art + code was awesome and seriously inspired me to focus more on educational material for teaching kids to program. I hope he at least gives a more valid reason for removing everything. I can understand letting something become dormant - but others can take what you have done and be inspired and or build upon it. That is not a slight to you it's just the way a system grows. Like layers of sediment upon rock upon sediment. If I ever discovered that a piece of my code/idea had made its way into something someone else had done I would be stoked not bummed out.
- unalone 17y agoPlease tell me this talk is online.
- pauldino 17y agoIt is indeed: http://www.vimeo.com/5047563 http://www.vimeo.com/5047563
- chrisrhoden 17y agoPlease remember the incredible amount of pressure he felt to continue support for older projects. That is why he initially set timelimits on certain projects. If he had stopped committing, people would have been beating down his door for an explanation.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- marcusestes 17y agoI have a feeling that this disappearing act is part of a ritualized collecting of energies that he needs to release Hackety Hack. He originally meant it to be ready for Art and Code and I have a feeling that many side-projects since then (including Potion) have been produced out of nervous energy misapplied to tasks other than his One True Project. His feelings aren't hurt, I doubt that very much.
- mbrubeck 17y agoOne of my favorite local (Seattle) musicians is Jason Webley. Every year or two he stages a big concert where he "dies" at the end in some staged way, then remains "dead" for the next 6 to 12 months, with no public appearances while he works on a major project. Then, usually on his birthday, he has another big event where he is "born" and then reveals the fruits of his labor.
- tcoffeep 17y ago:( A sad day.
- delano 17y agoThanks for all the fish, _why!
- mattmcknight 17y agoHe should probably be the one thanking us for the fish. (And we should be the ones preparing for the imminent destruction of our planet).
- n8agrin 17y ago_why just posted a new repo on github: http://github.com/why/lol/tree/master http://github.com/why/lol/tree/master EDIT: Weird, the repo description is "wtf adam, are you this slow". Hope he didn't get hacked. EDIT 2: original link is dead.
- zefhous 17y agoThe Hpricot wiki is still live on github, and the website is still up too. http://wiki.github.com/why/hpricot http://wiki.github.com/why/hpricot http://hpricot.com/ http://hpricot.com/ One of the most thoroughly documented libraries that I have used. It's interesting that he gave a talk in 2005 called "A Starry Afternoon, a Sinking Symphony, and the Polo Champ Who Gave It All Up for No Reason Whatsoever" (from his Wikipedia article) Anyone know anything about what he said about the Polo Champ in the talk?
- generalk 17y agoThere's a new repository up on his Github: http://github.com/why/lol/tree/master http://github.com/why/lol/tree/master Description: wtf adam, are you this slow I'm guessing he got hacked. Edit: Nevermind, the repo's been deleted.
- benatkin 17y agoApparently there's no holding period for deleted names on GitHub. If he wanted his twitter account to be taken by somebody else, he could have renamed it before deleting it. If you rename a twitter account, the old name is freed up instantly, but if you delete an account, it is held for an unknown period of time.
- timinman 17y ago_why got me back into programming and into ruby, first with Try Ruby! in the browser and later Hackety Hack. When I asked if I could use hackety to build a web app, he steered me toward rails. I've used tons of his library, especially hpricot. If you're listening _why; don't stop being generous - don't disappear without a trace.
- chanux 17y agoLoved his neat work why's poignant guide to ruby though I'm not a ruby guy. :( But why he'd commit a virtual suicide like this?
- brigleb 17y agoVery sad. No more chunky bacon?? I invite everyone to enjoy a video I set to some of his music, and reflect on his priceless contributions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YReSQfSBz4k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YReSQfSBz4k
- duairc 17y agoWhere did you find his music? I remember seeing on his Wikipedia article before that he made music, but I was able to find very little about it.
- levinalex 17y agoi tried to build a torrent: http://tinyurl.com/ktrjs8 http://tinyurl.com/ktrjs8 don't know if it actually works yet.
- cpach 17y agoThat link doesn't seem to work.
- Deadsunrise 17y agohttp://web.archive.org/web/20071018035725/poignantguide.net/sdtrk/ http://web.archive.org/web/20071018035725/poignantguide.net/... THE SOUNDTRACK TO why's (poignant) guide to ruby
- igorhvr 17y agoDoes anyone have a copy of all the source code he published? Specifically, does anyone have a copy of his Potion (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=425258 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=425258) repository somewhere online?
- _giu 17y agolooks a little bit suspicious to me: http://twitpic.com/ehm2h http://twitpic.com/ehm2h (_why created a repository called "lol" 30 minutes ago)
- timdorr 17y agoWrong. "why" created that account, which has only been a member since today. "_why" hasn't done anything.
- mr_justin 17y ago_why's account on github has always been "why", presumably because github does not allow an account name to start with an underscore. _why deleted his account and somebody snatched it up real quick
- malvim 17y agoAlso, the only current repo in this account (now called "because" and not "lol" anymore) has been CLONED by two other people! They made some commits, even. wtf?
- devynci 17y agoThe new /why account is a placeholder. The because repo is a thing that says some things about _why, stuff like theories on why he might have done it. Not a hack. (although I'm still not sure about the 'lol' thing...)
- hbeaver 17y agoI am very,very sad. He is one of the primary reasons I'm a ruby programmer too.
- luckyland 17y ago_why does as he wishes, and he has never seemed like the kind of person who lives with regret.
- randrews 17y agoI had a copy of Potion cloned on my machine, so I stuck it on Github. If someone has a newer one, please post it, or let me pull from you or something: http://github.com/randrews/potion http://github.com/randrews/potion _why had a lot of projects, we can probably preserve most of them just with people pushing stuff they had cloned.
- carbon8 17y agoThis one has commits through Aug 11/12: http://github.com/adamsanderson/potion/tree/master http://github.com/adamsanderson/potion/tree/master
- randrews 17y agoJust pulled it and updated mine. Thanks! If nothing else, this is an excellent test of Git's distributed-self-healing goodness. I really hope he comes back though.
- rufugee 17y agoInterestingly enough, even an interview of his has disappeared, while others on the site continue to work: HN post re: inteview: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=483207 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=483207 http://_why.usesthis.com/ http://_why.usesthis.com/ http://usesthis.com http://usesthis.com
- waferbaby 17y agosorry about that, i moved it to its own site.
- RyanMcGreal 17y agoVersion 0.5 of _why's Poignant Guide to Ruby is still available on Rubyforge: http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=183 http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=183
- mmaaxx 17y agoMaybe he just needs a break from the internet?
- emartin24 17y agoDon't assume that _why is the one removing his online identity...I've seen this happen with other people - and it was the work of a malicious hacker.
- timinman 17y agoI want to believe this, but then I remembered denial is one of the first phases of grief.
- bartwe 17y ago_why and Zed walk into a formum, the matter - antimatter reaction destroys the net for Gigabytes around.
- eapen 17y agoMy guess is that he got hired by an intelligence agency.
- xoai 17y agoThat could be right! I thought so.
- Arubis 17y agoAt the risk of being a little insensitive, this is a very good argument in favor of DCVS's.
- fogus 17y agoPerhaps he's rebooting his online identity? http://www.jonathanpaulgillette.com/ http://www.jonathanpaulgillette.com/
- blasdel 17y agoThat's just weird enough to be plausible -- there's pictures of the Shoes shoes, kitties, rainbows, needlepoint, and Tom Cruise giving a piggy back ride.
- zacharypinter 17y agoI don't think Jonathan Paul Gillette is _why. This site (linked to earlier in the thread) includes a picture of Jonathan Paul Gillette: http://www.uu.edu/centers/faculty/faculty/new/0607newfaculty.htm http://www.uu.edu/centers/faculty/faculty/new/0607newfaculty... The guy pictured on the faculty page matches the piggyback photo on http://www.jonathanpaulgillette.com/ http://www.jonathanpaulgillette.com/. Definitely not _why.
- crnixon 17y agoIt'd be a good idea to collect links to backups of his various projects. Does anyone have a copy of Hobix or Potion laying around?
- calcnerd256 17y agoMaybe his disappearance is an art piece about how things can or cannot be erased from the 'net.
- pfisch 17y agoHis job could have a stipulation in the contract that they own everything he creates. Wouldn't that make him potentially civilly liable for his open source contributions, as well as these books and other things he has made.
- kjell 17y ago"this girl at the pool is draggin such a stack of foam noodles it’s like she’s a little beaver going to dam up the diving board" from _why's twitter, 8/12/09. I hope the guy surfaces somewhere soon. One of the most outwardly joyful computer folks I've ever seen.
- mrflip 17y agoI've set up a mirror of re-forks of his repos at http://github.com/whymirror http://github.com/whymirror This isn't anything super-scientific, I just forked the first google hit for site:github.com "fork of why/THISREPO" -- http://bit.ly/whyrepo http://bit.ly/whyrepo Still missing: greg rb_parse_args skistrap processor chirrup
- ssn 17y agohttp://web.archive.org/web/*/http://whytheluckystiff.net/ http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://whytheluckystiff.net/
- cpach 17y agoIf anyone's about to mirror the stuff on his web sites, it might be wise to act quickly. Wayback Machine always checks the current robots.txt for a given domain, so it's possible to block files that have already been archived.
- datums 17y agohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EPzGpwnekg&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EPzGpwnekg&feature=relat... Sounds like him.
- many 17y agoWow you don't sound like the Young Republicans today!
- emullet 17y agoA guy I know used to work at Inetz. Here's a small chat exerpt from a few minutes ago... Confirmation that the guy that worked at Inetz is _why. Perhaps take it with a grain of salt. emullet you worked at Inetz right? friend 4:20 yeah emullet 4:20 You work with a guy named Jonathan Gillette ? friend 4:21 not allowed to answer that emullet 4:21 lol why do you say that? friend 4:21 but I've heard that a lot of his stuff "disappeared" today emullet 4:21 ya you know whats up? friend 4:21 nope emullet 4:21 its very odd kinda cool he worked with you
- yooshooa 17y agoin pursuit of this new knowledge i have discovered that every... easily accessible (so far)... copy of his poignant guide to ruby has disappeared as well what an eff you i'm pretty dissapointed. if anyone has a copy, i would love to talk... i'm certainly the intended audience. yooshooa@yahoo
- tcoffeep 17y agoI have a pdf that has up to chapter 6. Mediafire link (is.gd'd) : http://is.gd/2p1Jd http://is.gd/2p1Jd
- mrflip 17y agohttp://github.com/whymirror/poignantguide/tree/master http://github.com/whymirror/poignantguide/tree/master
- rms 17y agohttp://rubyforge.org/projects/poignant/ http://rubyforge.org/projects/poignant/ It was released under CC Attribution-ShareAlike so there is no reason for it to disappear.
- avit 17y agoIt's still out there: http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/book/ http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/book/
- lylo 17y agoit's the mystique, the razzle dazzle, the enigma. his fabulous body of work will live on, restored, uploaded and duplicated by hundreds of devotees and admirers. he'll be reincarnated. a _why by any other name would still smell as sweet. it's better to burn out than to fade away. ladies and gentlemen, elvis has left the building.
- gourneau 17y ago"This is the true joy in life ... being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one ... being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy ... I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It’s a sort of splendid torch which I’ve got to hold up for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing on to future generations." -- George Bernard Shaw http://tr.im/why_burn http://tr.im/why_burn I lament the departure of _why. However, it looks like his flame will continue to live on, even if he would have hoped otherwise. Thanks _why
- blhack 17y agoI'm sure this comment will get lost in all the clutter, but: I, up until today, didn't give two shits about ruby. I know that I had heard of this craaazzzyyyy "Ruby on Rails" jazz from about a year ago, and I know that people talked about it all the time, but I grabbed onto my python, looked the other way, and called it good. Now, I want to learn ruby... This guy seemed like he was all about teaching people Ruby, perhaps this was an attention grab?
- aslakhellesoy 17y agoA few years back I read Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. Somewhere in the middle of the book someone says "why the lucky stiff!" Does anyone know what that means?
- lambdajones 17y agoit means why is probably in a remote, hidden mountain village in Colorado.
- tcoffeep 17y agoI read about that on Wikipedia. I've never read the book, though. There's just something about text and paper that doesn't agree with my stomach. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Why_the_lucky_stiff#Real_name http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Why_the_lucky_stiff#Real_n...
- anigbrowl 17y ago'stiff' is 30s slang for a working class person (as in 'working stiff'). This would be like saying 'he really lucked out!' today - a mixture of admiration and mild jealousy for someone's (possibly unearned) good fortune.
- timinman 17y agoI'm pretty sure stiff is slang for dead person, but it gets used more generally than that, for example: 'working stiff', a working person nothing going for him.
- kallistec 17y agointernet/_why #=> SystemStackError: stack level too deep I remember reading on his twitter something like, "a caller asks: should I use hpricot or nokogiri? If you're not me, use nokogiri. If you're me, then stop being me"
- thorn0 17y agoJeff Yates' disappearance is the similar case. He is JavaScript developer, books author and creator of PBWizard, one of the very first WYSIWYG editors. He had site pbwizard.com with many articles. However only one of these article can be found in web today (http://www.dotvoid.com/2001/03/using-the-range-object-in-mozilla/ http://www.dotvoid.com/2001/03/using-the-range-object-in-moz...).
- ddemchuk 17y agoI would love to see _why come back as _whynot
- elliottcable 17y agoGood riddance.
- elliottcable 17y agoOf course, downvote me because I’m not mourning somebody who, if you’ll notice, isn’t dead /-:
- chipotlecoyote 17y agoI'm betting they're downvoting you because your comment was kind of douchey. It's okay not to be concerned about Why's abrupt disappearance from online-ness, but slamming other people for being concerned about it? And "good riddance?" Really?
- devynci 17y agoYes, but I agree with him: he will come back. It is unlike him to leave without a message.
- jpteti 17y agoHis GitHub account is back! http://github.com/why http://github.com/why
- revyver 17y agoIt's supposedly a placeholder for when he comes back.
- noodle 17y agoi couldn't help but think of this exchange when i saw the _why incident: - Nobody died. How can you kill an idea? How can you kill the personification of an action? - Then what died? Who are you mourning? - A point of view. Cain, Elbis O'Shaughnessy, and Abel, in Sandman: The Wake (yes i'm double posting this, i feel that it is also appropriate here in the original thread)
- 123581321345589 17y agoA traceroute to whytheluckystiff.com ends with http://cewki.com http://cewki.com , which contains a link to this thread. _why, you inspired me to be a developer.
- Action 17y agoWhat happened to him? Has he got any problems?
- doki_pen 17y agoA clue: http://away.autognosis.org/ http://away.autognosis.org/
- levinalex 17y agohere's two more videos from _why from his OSCON 2005 talk: http://bit.ly/1atNHU http://bit.ly/1atNHU ("Sinking Symphony" and "Foxes Tall and Small on Modules")
- obelix74 17y agoomg, where will I go for my hpricot documentation now?
- avit 17y agoI feel compelled to dispatch an anonymous postcard to _why, just to say thanks. And to wish the best farewell. Maybe I'll find one with a furry animal on the front, like a lumberjack or something. Tomorrow. You see, phoning seems rather creepy. And besides, I really don't have anything to ask him, or of him. He's taught us all so much already. Yeah, a postcard seems best. Just a message in a bottle, a ping into the void. Naturally, the letter shall read in a language known well among those he has enlightened. Thanks, old friend.
- hady_af 17y agoI have an opinion I would like to share, from what am reading online, it seems that his last tweet was a bit angry at the programming world, us in a more specific term. Us developers whom have learned so much from him... What I feel is that it's like an anger wave inside him, that like "alright, people are not thankful for what I do, let's see what happens when everything goes down... now what will they do without me" dunno, but I cannot find an explanation of why even his source codes are down.. really hope he's blessed by god somewhere feeling better and if that's the case, being angry at us, hope he feels better soon. guys I think maybe we should do him a website, you know like a call for his return, who's with me?
- frankjones 17y agoFound this _why's tweet from Google's cache. I'm not quite sure what this is about - and everybody might have already seen this, but here goes: "burying myself feet first in the woods with the hope that this will lead to a career as a much beloved and sought after mouth-under-a-rock." Link to Google's cached _why Twitter page: http://bit.ly/2h5PKy http://bit.ly/2h5PKy
- chaelus 17y agoI'm afraid my impression of _why from what I've read lately is that he wasn't exactly happy. Adding to that.. has anyone read the last few pages of chapter 6 of his guide recently? Apparently his sister was drinking and got alcohol poisoning or might have been on drugs. All in all it seems he was deeply troubled by this and by his deteriorating relationship to his sister. When did he write this and is this stuff about his sister true? I really, really hope it isn't and that he or his sister didn't do something tragic.
- devynci 17y agoI think that was all a joke. He likes to make up stories, you see.
- chaelus 17y agoWell thats the problem with people who tell lots of stories isn't it? You can never tell if a story is actually true or not.. At least it does seem to me to be a remarkably depressing section in an otherwise fun and quirky book.
- yaskall 17y agoI keep asking myself: "Why _why?" and "_why, why?" and "Why _why, _why?" and "_why, why, why, why!?" and "_why, why, _why, why..."...
- devynci 17y agoDid anyone try calling (801) 415-2566? Supposedly it's Jonathan Gilette's number. If this really is _why, which I'm not sure, and I'm kinda doubtful.
- devynci 17y agohttp://stores.lulu.com/_why http://stores.lulu.com/_why is gone too. :( Man, he really went to town!
- devynci 17y agoHey everyone! _why the lucky stiff's Flickr account still exists! http://www.flickr.com/photos/_why http://www.flickr.com/photos/_why Either he or the hackers or whoever is responsible for this forgot about his Flickr account.
- teeja 17y agoGuess he wants to avoid the Mitnick Dilemma? http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2009/08/kevin-mitnick-prominent-hacker-victim/ http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2009/08/kevin-mitnick...
- Zoasterboy 17y agoWhy's dead. Ruby lives on.