Part of the reason is that he keeps his projects limited in scope and simple. If his github repo is any indication, he only works on one or two things at a given time and is able to complete them (due to limited scope). Because he doesn't take himself seriously, no one is harping on him to say that "we need this or that, because we need it for ENTERPRISE!" So he's able to keep it simple, get it done, move on, and learn something in the process.

As for how he supports himself and is able to make the time to code is a mystery to me.

http://github.com/why/potion/graphs/punch_card

Looking at his commit patterns, it's throughout the days of the week, even though the bulk of it is at night. But it's reassuring to see that even _why stops for dinner, and the reason why the rest of us aren't as productive is because we're not as consistently hacking away as he is.

As for knowing more about him, I'd say you'd probably learn more about him reading his code than digging up things like his real name.

yeah, _why is a mistic (and pretty smart) individual. he's also a cool guy. I enjoyed watching the speech he gave at the ART && CODE Symposium: http://www.vimeo.com/5047563 .

oh, and thanks to raju for submitting the link; I last checked hackety.org about two weeks ago and it was down then. it's nice to see that hackety.org is up and running again.

We don't even know his name!

That nobody's outed him is a testament to his greatness.

Yeah, him and Zed Shaw. But their personalities seem to be on opposite poles.