Can someone write an explanation for why this is important? Who is this person?
From ~2002 to 2009, he released a tremendous amount of material (dozens of code projects, thousands of blog posts), then disappeared abruptly, deleting almost everything he had ever published. His blog posts were humorous yet insightful. His libraries were excellent, some of his snippets were completely baffling. The libraries were always artfully and pedagogically documented.
He wrote in 2005 an essay lamenting the high barier of entry to programming for children in the 2000's whereas Basic was available in every 8/16bit computers when he was a kid. From then on, he tried to improve the situation: first by writing his Poignant guide to Ruby, then by writing http://http://tryruby.org/, the first online REPL, wrapped in an interactive tutorial. At last, he started the Hackety Hack project: an development environment to teach programming to children.
Extremely creative, he (used to?) consider programming to be an art in and of itself, but frequently mixed genres too. His programming book is illustrated with cartoons, fantastic stories and has a sound track that illustrates either the code, the stories, or the book writing process itself. The "This book is made (of rabbits and lemonade)" and "The parts of Ruby/Chunky Bacon" songs gives you a good sample of what his overall production felt like (see below).
He was also excellent at promoting his works, but was ambivalent regarding his own fame.
He also sometimes displayed a darker side (like in the Poignant Guide where he jokingly predicted that he was going to burn out and shoot himself in the head).
Watching him was at the same time entertaining and enlightening, and more, and I definitely wasn't the only person to deeply enjoy what he was doing... When he disappeared people went to no end to recover his works.
Most of his deleted work has been restored from backups (git forks and RSS feeds helped with this). Some of his code projects have been taken over by others, and all are archived here: http://viewsourcecode.org/why/
While active, he was admired. When he disappeared, he became a legend. It's a pity he left so many things unfinished.
--
The Poignant Guid to Ruby: http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/
--
The Redhanded blog, covering all things Ruby: http://viewsourcecode.org/why/redhanded/
Hackety.org, his next blog on artful programming: http://viewsourcecode.org/why/hackety.org/
--
The SoundTrack of the Poignant Guide: http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/soundtrack/
Recommended:
- This book is made (of rabbits and lemonade): http://s3.amazonaws.com/mislav.baconfile.com/poignant-guide%...
- The parts of Ruby / Chunky Bacon : http://s3.amazonaws.com/mislav.baconfile.com/poignant-guide%...
.
.
I just found out that it was still possible to buy Chunky Bacon t-shirts: http://www.cafepress.co.uk/blixytees
I realize that ending the description in such a bitter way misses the big picture.
He offered a slew of free/libre programs and art, and more. Bickering over a few abandoned projects is ridiculous.
_why, if you happen to read this: it was fun while it lasted. Thanks a lot for the ride, and best wishes for your current and future endeavors.
"caller asks, “should i use hpricot or nokogiri?” if you’re NOT me: use nokogiri. and if you’re me: well cut it out, stop being me."
"if you program and want any longevity to your work, make a game. all else recycles, but people rewrite architectures to keep games alive."
I also find it pretty odd that no-one seems to know what he is doing now. What about all of his friends? Do they also don't where he is? But I think if someone puts so much energy in hidden himself he shouldn't be found anyway.
On the other side there are plenty of people who did or still do a lot to be popular in the community.
Last but not least I think the guy has earned some rest.
He gave a lot to the community, far more in the short time he was around than most people produce in their lifetime, and we should be/are thankful for it.
... or any sufficiently large and financially important enterprise code, really. :-(
No. Enterprise (and enterprisey) code is born dead. With huge amount of effort, it may be coerced into walking. It also eats brains.
This strikes me as all of:
1. wrong
2. unsupported
3. inflammatory
4. of no value to the conversation.
Would you care to support / substantiate that claim somehow?
And interesting libraries and tools (Camping, Hpricot, Redcloth, Syck, Shoes, unHoly — a Ruby to Python compiler, TryRuby and Hackety Hack).
He also looks like the old Jack Black (with hair and beard, Tenacious-D Era)
Some people say he stopped writing because he was in danger of being "outed" by people trying to find his identity. Or maybe he got sick of Ruby, and wanted to do something else (without the burden of fame). Or he's still working under another identity and persona.
The whole mystery thing is typical of him - he likes bringing a bit of wonder into the world.
W H A T!? How is _why in any way the Bobby Fisher of programming? Bobby Fischer was a famous, amazing chess player. _why is a person that writes code and some people (some Ruby developers, rather) look up to. They're not comparable in any way.
The only difference is they didn't make a movie about _why.
Some people worship him for reasons i find myself unable to fathom.