
Closure - benatkin
http://words.steveklabnik.com/closure
======
prezjordan
Question for Steve: How did Summer of Code go? I understand you mentored a
student who developed for Hackety Hack a few summers ago?

By the way, I'd love to contribute to Hackety Hack :)

~~~
steveklabnik
Summer of code went really well. I had a fantastic student that contributed so
much.

I'd love to have more contributors on Hackety. Development is basically frozen
while we re-write Shoes to pay off the technical debt involved. (CORRUPTION
really spoke to me...) So the best way to help is to get on
<https://github.com/shoes/shoes4> and shoes@librelist.com and start pitching
in!

~~~
adrianoconnor
CORRUPTION kind of explained a lot :)

Hey, you're going the JRuby route? Are you using Swing and what-not to get rid
of the platform specific code? How's it working out? I'll grab the source and
see if there's anything I can help with. I don't get a lot of time away from
my day-job while my children are so young, but as they grow up Hackety Hack is
the sort of project I'd very much like to help out with.

~~~
steveklabnik
When I first started hacking on Shoes, it took me 6 months to compile. o_O.

We are going a few routes:

1) The first iteration will be JRuby + SWT. 2) It's written in a way that the
DSL is separate from the backend, so that SWT can be swapped out for Swing or
whatever. 3) Same with the Ruby: ideally, someday we can move back to an
embedded MRI.

It's working out pretty well so far, a lot of the example code runs.

Due to my Shoes burnout, I'm playing semi-absent benevolent dictator for now.
A great team of people is doing all of the actual work.

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holyjaw
So I've been googling around and I think I've got most of the pieces of this
puzzle figured out (_why was a great, eccentric developer, he disappeared and
commited info-suicide).

But what I don't get is why the author of this article waited a year ('So I
marked my calendar for the 18th, and waited. That was yesterday.') --- What
indication did he have to mark his calendar for the 18th (was this an
anniversary?)

I'm so very confused about this, but I'm intrigued.

~~~
Jeremysr
Jan. 2013 was _why's first reappearance. He had actually updated his website
with the first couple entries in the print queue in December, but no one
noticed until January. After people noticed (
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5015087> ), _why started updating it with
more pages in the print queue, one of which said the print queue was going
down until April 18, and would then be up during the hours of 4 to 12. Which
sounded like _why was going to do something big that day.

~~~
holyjaw
Ah; much clearer now. Thanks!

------
unalone
Where was the IF game within _why's spool?

~~~
steveklabnik
The part about "Sacred Clowns" is valid INFORM 7 code:
[http://playfic.com/games/waxpancake/sacred-clowns-by-why-
the...](http://playfic.com/games/waxpancake/sacred-clowns-by-why-the-lucky-
stiff)

~~~
jes5199
I can't figure out how to get to the red shed :-/

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futhey
<BLINK> Your homepage is brilliant. </BLINK>

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ricardobeat
Is there a mirror for CLOSURE.pdf only? Github won't allow download, and I'm
on a terrible connection to download the whole repo.

~~~
steveklabnik
No problem: <https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5764687/CLOSURE.pdf>

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erikpukinskis
It's weird to see people so flagrantly posting stuff without a copyright
license. Is it just because _why only put their past work on the internet
temporarily that people feel like it's OK to distribute this new stuff freely?

~~~
benatkin
I find you're assertion, that something that lacks a copyright license
shouldn't be shared, far more troubling.

~~~
steveklabnik
Technically, according to the law, they are 100% correct.

~~~
coldtea
He means according to Justice and Good, not the law.

