It seems _why is a very enigmatic figure and his real identity seems to be not known. However I respect his desire to stay anonymous despite the fame he deserves for being a very creative and respectable hacker.
I think his real identity is very well known, isn't it? He's why the lucky stiff. (Admittedly my Argentine friends might complain that since we don't know the number of his Documento Nacional de Identidad, we don't really know his identity. It's really hard to explain to notaries and the like that my new US passport came with a new passport number, and that does not mean that I am not the same person.)
His real name was on his Wikipedia entry for a brief period. At the time I confirmed with others that it was true, but then it was removed and hasn't been back since. I've not been able to find it with a casual browse (and I've forgotten it). This is all the more amusing since he wrote the foreword for my book :)
Me and my friends once tried to uncover his real name, with no success. It seems he has registered all his domains with the name _why the lucky stiff (the WHOIS page said "the lucky stiff, _why")
_why is an ARTIST!
I wish the interviewer asked what he thinks about calling software engineering - and the classic 'building bridges' comparison... :-)
For all the interesting things _why does, I've always maintained that it would be completely unsurprising if he was in fact an entire group of hackers. He must never sleep.
Yes, when XP came out it was beautiful, wasn't it :D I still used the classic theme though. Im not that much of a windows user any more, so it doesn't bother me that it looks like it came from the 90's, and im a 90's kid, so there :D
I agree in that I don't think the interview contributed very much, other than to propagate his quirky reputation
But reading your comment makes it sound like that's all there is to him - it isn't. I found his book brilliant - the quirkiness in no way made it any less informative or useful, and only made it more enjoyable. I encourage anybody who hasn't read it, or who want's to learn Ruby, to take a look at http://poignantguide.net/ruby/
Since he's able to contribute/create/do as much as he does, I say let him do it in any way he wants. Apparently he finds it fun to create and preform a character.
Yeah, if you look at the literature surrounding the things he's created (hacketyhack, potion, etc.), you'll notice he talks pretty normal when it's about serious stuff.
Don't we have too many normal people out there already, saying the same stuff in their lookalike blogs...?
(or maybe _why IS one of those guys as well, uh?)
No, of course not, but they seem to be related in the mids of many people.
There's a great collection of short stories, Mathenauts: Tales of Mathematical Wonder, that has (as I recall) a tale of some institute that was hiring mathematicians. The candidates affected assorted behavioral quirks so as to come off as sufficiently bizarre, and, hence, brilliant.
_why is eccentric in a completely out there way, its pretty hard to argue there's someone like him. RMS is a archetypal hacker from the 70's who remained that way in the 2000's.
There's no doubt that they both do great things, one's just more then slightly more unique and the other is intimately known.
The thing is, each and every one of us is unique, by virtue of being born.
People just happen to have converging tendencies, and there's nothing wrong with that. There's no need to Be Different. I'm not saying you shouldn't find your own thing and do it. It's just that being different doesn't require any effort on anyone's part.
Besides, anyone could pick up _why's Quirky Shtick and sound roughly the same.
