
Celebrate Whyday - binbasti
http://whyday.org
======
compay
Sometimes I find it hard to believe that such a cheerful character has ended
up being so polarizing. People both lionize and demonize this guy, and neither
one is fair. _Why is not the greatest genius who ever lived, but he inspired a
lot of people to get into programming, is a very witty and creative person,
and a pretty damn good hacker as well. I could think of far worse people to
honor.

~~~
saturdayplace
I think he's polarizing for two reasons:

1\. He was _so_ whimsical. Some people just can't cope with whimsy. To them,
the world is a serious place for serious business (like programming). Others
wanted to dance to his tune, and were glad to join the parade, but wanted
someone out else front. _why was a great drum major.

2\. When he took down his repos without any warning, the serious people felt
as though _why had breached some kind of un-written contract, and the parade
folks felt like the children of divorcees: abandoned, and wondering if somehow
it was their fault.

When emotions get involved, you get the polarization. Simple as that. Whatever
else you say about the guy, he was a great storyteller.

~~~
koenigdavidmj
>2\. When he took down his repos without any warning, the serious people felt
as though _why had breached some kind of un-written contract, and the parade
folks felt like the children of divorcees: abandoned, and wondering if somehow
it was their fault.

I think he knew that they were in git, so nothing would really be lost.

~~~
steveklabnik
While this is mostly true, not everything of his was in git. I would give
almost anything to have a copy of the source code for hackety.org, for
example. I had to reverse-engineer the calls Hackety Hack was making to the
site.

------
extension
A year later, I'm still bitter about this.

There are very few people I've ever admired as much as this guy. He had a
fantastic attitude towards programming, absolutely one of a kind.

If he had to sacrifice that for the sake of his real life, I could accept
that. But if he really wanted privacy, he could have just stopped
participating and let himself fade into obscurity.

Instead, he threw a tantrum and nuked all his sites. He didn't want privacy,
he wanted to drop a big drama bomb on everyone. He's not the first person I've
known to pull the disappearing act and it's not something I admire or want to
celebrate, it's just jeuvenile and petty.

~~~
mapleoin
With the persona he had created I think it would've been sadder to watch it
fade into obscurity rather than go out with a bang.

~~~
extension
At the very least, he could have done something dramatic yet _positive_.
Pulling down all his code like that, I really think he was out to spite
everyone.

~~~
jacquesm
When someone gives you a bunch of stuff that you are able to use for a while
and then decides to retract it that's still a net positive to you.

You have no right to continue to demand he makes his work available to you.

> I really think he was out to spite everyone.

If that were the case he would have never written it in the first place.

~~~
uxp
> If that were the case he would have never written it in the first place.

Or written it with some license that stipulates it cannot be used in either
closed source or any open source applications, only for 'educational' use.
Worse, he could have tried to do it retroactively.

I doubt he had that intention.

------
jacquesm
Martin Luther King day cool.

Nelson Mandela day, I can see why ;), even if his life didn't affect me
personally in any way.

I can think of plenty of people where it would be appropriate to commemorate
their passing (And both Mandela and 'why' (the person, not the alias) are
still alive) by naming a day for them.

But whyday?

~~~
mapleoin
What if _why was the person who motivated you most for picking a career in
programming? _why's persona is an inspiration to see programming and life in a
different light for some people (myself included).

~~~
jacquesm
I don't know what would be the appropriate way to worship such a person, maybe
a little altar or something?

A blog entry on how he inspired you, how he changed your views on programming
and life?

That would do it I think.

~~~
pavs
> I don't know what would be the appropriate way to worship such a person,
> maybe a little altar or something?

Whats with the snarky condescending remark?

Why does someone needs to be either dead or have world shattering contribution
to humanity for others to appreciate their contribution or even existence?

I didn't even know this guy until recently, but I just went through some of
his writing and (to me) it showed a person with creativity who put a lot of
effort in his work and some people really appreciates that. And this small
group of people who liked his work wants to put aside one day to celebrate his
contribution. So they had an option between selecting a random day or a day
that this person stopped his online persona.

Let them celebrate, you don't have to be a dick about it.

~~~
jacquesm
> Whats with the snarky condescending remark?

It's only snarky and condescending because you pull it out of context.

> Why does someone needs to be either dead or have world shattering
> contribution to humanity for others to appreciate their contribution or even
> existence?

There are 365 days in a year, and this particular person has at least in my
opinion clearly indicated that he no longer wants to be part of the whole
thing and would like it all to _stop_.

Continuing the _why saga appears to be in direct opposition of what the prime
entity in this whole thing wants, so how could that be celebrating it?

------
nickpinkston
It mentions that Hackety Hack need contributions, they're still actively
developing here:

<http://hacketyhack.heroku.com/>

~~~
steveklabnik
Thanks nick. That link is actually broken for some reason at the moment, I'm
upgrading the site.

Also, please update your links everyone, I have <http://hackety-hack.com> now.

------
jdp
I think this sort of hero worship is something _why would not advocate.

~~~
raganwald
<http://twitter.com/raganwald/status/21568690272>

------
davidw
Generally, we celebrate people on their birthday, rather than the day they
left us.

~~~
lsb
Actually, in the Jewish faith, when celebrating the life of someone who died
(via candles etc), it's done on the day of their death.

~~~
astine
Among Catholics as well: Saint's days are on the anniversary of their death,
not birth.

------
rue
Guy came along, a bit unconventional and smarter than the average. Wrote and
made available some very good software for its time. Inspired a following, of
people who had no business trying to be whimsical or clever. Guy went away.
Weeping sadness, betrayal!

------
catch404
Making a day to celebrate some ideas _why made popular isn't such a bad thing.

------
bumi
put away your best practices today!

------
johkra
Has it really been a year?

I didn't know much about _why until after he left. I only experienced his
works later, had a look under the hood of Potion and was inspired by his
passions.

In this spirit I'll take the rest of the day of and go hacking on my
scanner/copier web-front-end so my family can do everything by themselves
while I'm away.

~~~
randallsquared
_Has it really been a year?_

Has it _only_ been a year?

------
juxtaposition
I thought the guy made it clear that he didn't want to be _why anymore, or
didn't want _why to be a "thing" anymore.

Do you really think _why would want you to celebrate Whyday? Let it go
already.

------
dublinclontarf
I miss _why, I use shoes, it's the only desktop framework that I like. ;^;

We miss you _why

~~~
steveklabnik
If you didn't notice, we released Shoes 3 today: <http://shoes.heroku.com/>

------
sh1mmer
I'm not a Rubyist but there is something magically about _why. He should be an
inspiration to the advocates of all programming and we should try to emulate
some of the whimsy and fun he brought to the craft.

Programming will be a lot better with a little more of _why-like magic in it.

------
jerguismi
but... why?

------
jw84
Creepy. A break up is a break up. Besides, he's too busy shooting sequels to
High Fidelity and School of Rock.

~~~
iamjustlooking
I believe pretty popular relationship advice on reddit is that if you catch
your SO cheating on you then you should pack up and leave without saying a
thing. Apparently it really gets to the other person as they don't really know
why they left.

------
ahoyhere
I wonder _why I wonder

I wonder _why I wonder _why

I wonder _why I wonder!

... with apologies to Richard Feynman, another jester.

------
omouse
Yeah, no thanks. Programmers already ignore best practices and already have
too much fun, look at the lack of good documentation for a lot of projects and
look at the crappiness of most apps or the piles of bugs they contain. There
are very few programmers who act professionally, I don't know why you would
want to celebrate that fact.

~~~
chc
Do you think the "crappiness of most apps" is because those apps were just too
well-loved by their creators or because the people behind the app didn't care
enough to do it properly (or even learn how to)?

Turning programming into mindless drudgery where you just go down a checklist
of best practices is the _reason_ so many programs are crap. The apps by
passionate solo developers who really pour themselves into their work tend to
be better than the just-barely-passes-tests work you'll get out of a cog-in-
the-machine enterprise coder who just wants to go home.

