
_why is no more - Jeremysr
http://twitter.com/_why
======
Jeremysr
I just noticed that _why apparently deleted his twitter account. I then found
that that wasn't all he deleted:

<http://twitter.com/_why> <http://github.com/why>
<http://whytheluckystiff.net/> <http://poignantguide.net/>
<http://hackety.org/> <http://shoooes.net/>

All disappeared...

For those who don't know who I'm talking about:
<http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_the_lucky_stiff>

~~~
dazmax
Someone outed him here: <http://whoiswhytheluckystiff.wordpress.com/>

~~~
mosburger
Something doesn't seem right about that detective work - there's a Jonathan
Gillette online who is a web developer in Harrisburg, PA who doesn't seem to
be _why. Obviously it's likely that there's more than one Jonathan Gillette on
the internet, but it seems odd to me that this other guy is also a web
developer, with a decent online presence, in (somewhat) the same geographic
area where _why is suspected to live, that _isn't_ him.

But I don't know enough about e-mail headers to provide an alternate
explanation if there is one.

EDIT: This is that other guy's site, FWIW: <http://jonathangillette.net/>

And he's on twitter: <http://twitter.com/jgillette>

EDIT 2: The infamous Zed Shaw posted a link to another page which I'm more
inclined to believe is the real _why. I'm not going to post the link here, but
you can find it in Zed's twitter stream if you really want to.

~~~
burke
That Jonathan Gillette was also going to school in Pennsylvania
(<http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathangillette>) when _why wrote that message,
supposedly from Salt Lake City, Utah.

~~~
mosburger
Nice find - you're a more thorough detective/stalker than I. :)

~~~
burke
Yet more detective work:

[http://javuh.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/javuh/javuh/Model/Ps...](http://javuh.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/javuh/javuh/Model/Psychoo/Object.inc?view=log&pathrev=MAIN)

He seems to have been working on the same file, in the same day, as Jonathan
Gillette. Probably poking around this repository a little more could lead to
an almost-definitive answer.

Also, here:
[http://javuh.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/javuh/javuh/Services...](http://javuh.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/javuh/javuh/Services/Unified/Common.inc?view=markup)
the @author is listed as:

    
    
           11  *  @author Why Carlisle (whytheluckystiff@mailcity.com)
    
    

EDIT: Still going....

He talks about a 14-year-old sister here:
[http://www.advogato.org/person/whytheluckystiff/diary/14.htm...](http://www.advogato.org/person/whytheluckystiff/diary/14.html)

This being written in 2001, that would make her ~21 now.

Searching for Jonathan Gillette, [http://www.intelius.com/search-summary-
out.php?ReportType=1&...](http://www.intelius.com/search-summary-
out.php?ReportType=1&qf=jonathan&qmi=&qn=Gillette&qs=UT&trackit=74&focusfirst=1)

a few relatives are listed, presumably one of which would be his sister,
however, none are in the right age range.

Right, back to work now, I promise.

~~~
cl3m
I'm ended up on <http://members.tripod.com/soccer_riot/> which seems to be
some early stuff from _why..

From "Collected by Why the Lucky Stiff",
<http://members.tripod.com/soccer_riot/famous.htm>

~~~
burke
Well look at that, it was him: <http://imgur.com/yq9o1>

dolphins.ram has "Jonathan Gillette" as the author. Yet another reason to hate
Real Player.

I would feel bad about posting this, but since everyone's apparently going to
go around assuming it with almost-proof already, I guess it can't do much
harm.

------
mitchellh
_why was to the ruby community what willy wonka was to chocolate. Maybe, just
as the fictional Willy Wonka secluded himself in his chocolate factory for so
many years due to competition, _why is simply secluding himself in his
programming factory.

Deliciously sweet chocolates (or libraries/books/hacketyhack/etc.) will
hopefully magically still appear.

Maybe _why is simply going to oompa loompa land to get little helpers.

~~~
judofyr
Where is Charlie?

~~~
mbreese
Waiting for his golden chunky bacon ticket...

------
shaunxcode
Man - what a bum out. The talk he gave at art + code was awesome and seriously
inspired me to focus more on educational material for teaching kids to
program. I hope he at least gives a more valid reason for removing everything.
I can understand letting something become dormant - but others can take what
you have done and be inspired and or build upon it. That is not a slight to
you it's just the way a system grows. Like layers of sediment upon rock upon
sediment. If I ever discovered that a piece of my code/idea had made its way
into something someone else had done I would be stoked not bummed out.

~~~
unalone
Please tell me this talk is online.

~~~
pauldino
It is indeed: <http://www.vimeo.com/5047563>

------
tsally
I suspect some sort of burn out. Honestly the guy was a machine. I remember
looking at his commit logs for all of his public Github projects and wondering
how he managed it. And mind you, that only accounts for code publicly released
and doesn't address any private projects he might have been working on.

~~~
doki_pen
I'm on the shoes mailing list and he recently made this announcement:

Aug 3rd: <quote> Okay, wow, hello, I'm very behind on this list, I hope you
will pardon me. I've been away for the summer, taking a break from everything.

Well, enough of that, time's up: I hope to concentrate strictly on getting
Shoes 3 done. While it's disappointing to see what a poor job I've done with
Shoes, I am going to try to do what I can to aright the situation by at least
getting us some more speed and stability. (As with all of my projects, it's
just a toy experiment which is full of an unpredictable amount of both the
sweet and bitter.)

My hope is to release the final version by September 7th. Please, if you want
something fixed for Shoes 3, it will need to be filed on github, in the issues
section. Yes, I think that will work just great.

_why </quote>

Perhaps this is a publicity stunt to popularize the new and improved Hackety
Hack?!

------
carbon8
Apparently he tweeted this yesterday (quoted from a retweet): "programming is
rather thankless. u see your works become replaced by superior ones in a year.
unable to run at all in a few more."

But _why's contributions are largely irreplaceable. Yeah, software evolves and
individual projects might be supplanted by others, but his contributions go
way beyond simply writing functioning code.

~~~
there
_Apparently he tweeted this yesterday: "programming is rather thankless. u see
your works become replaced by superior ones in a year. unable to run at all in
a few more."_

ironically he wrote "you" on twitter, and you wrote "u" on hn.

~~~
Jeremysr
It's from a retweet I believe, where the retweeter replaced "you" with "u",
perhaps to fit it into 140 chars.

------
hvs
Is it just me, or does Ruby tend have these "personalities" more than other
communities? Seems like the Ruby community focuses a lot on the "rockstar"
mentality. I don't spend any time in it to know for sure, though.

~~~
pavelludiq
_Why is more like a fairy tale character than a rock star. What qualities of
his persona do you consider to be rock star qualities?

~~~
bd
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottlaird/31366517/>

:)

------
mrflip
I've set up a mirror of re-forks of his repos at

<http://github.com/whymirror>

This isn't anything super-scientific, I just forked the first google hit for
site:github.com "fork of why/THISREPO" -- <http://bit.ly/whyrepo>

Still missing: greg rb_parse_args skistrap processor chirrup

------
dylanz
I hope he didn't take my extremely down voted, (apparently) not funny, pun
ridden comment on this article too seriously. My puns were harmless, I swear.
Any comic drawn in programming text immediately makes me think of _why:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=771013>

But seriously, reading _why's poignant guide to ruby back in the day was a
breath of fresh air coming from Java, and wanting to try something new. His
intermingled illustrations and humorous text made a programming book that I
actually found enjoyable to read. Also, his contributions in terms of
libraries and interesting apps has been awesome.

_why: My hats off to you fine sir! May you find goodness on your latest
adventures!

~~~
jefurii
i've taken the python path instead of the ruby one, but _why's poignant guide
is simply amazing. the only programming book i know of that's both psychedelic
and actually useful. well not as a reference, but great for expanding your
mind. _why, if you're reading, blessings to you. i thank you for enriching my
programming life, and i hope we hear from you again.

------
marcusestes
I have a feeling that this disappearing act is part of a ritualized collecting
of energies that he needs to release Hackety Hack. He originally meant it to
be ready for Art and Code and I have a feeling that many side-projects since
then (including Potion) have been produced out of nervous energy misapplied to
tasks other than his One True Project.

His feelings aren't hurt, I doubt that very much.

~~~
mbrubeck
One of my favorite local (Seattle) musicians is Jason Webley. Every year or
two he stages a big concert where he "dies" at the end in some staged way,
then remains "dead" for the next 6 to 12 months, with no public appearances
while he works on a major project. Then, usually on his birthday, he has
another big event where he is "born" and then reveals the fruits of his labor.

------
DanielStraight
Well that sort of ruins one's day. I hope everything is alright with him.

------
zefhous
The Hpricot wiki is still live on github, and the website is still up too.

<http://wiki.github.com/why/hpricot> <http://hpricot.com/>

One of the most thoroughly documented libraries that I have used.

It's interesting that he gave a talk in 2005 called "A Starry Afternoon, a
Sinking Symphony, and the Polo Champ Who Gave It All Up for No Reason
Whatsoever" (from his Wikipedia article)

Anyone know anything about what he said about the Polo Champ in the talk?

------
grandalf
I noticed that people had been ripping on his code a bit lately... I think the
Ruby community's embrace of Nokogiri really hurt the man's feelings.

_why has been a great contributor to the Ruby community... let's hope he
reincarnates himself :)

------
timinman
_why got me back into programming and into ruby, first with Try Ruby! in the
browser and later Hackety Hack. When I asked if I could use hackety to build a
web app, he steered me toward rails. I've used tons of his library, especially
hpricot. If you're listening _why; don't stop being generous - don't disappear
without a trace.

------
brigleb
Very sad. No more chunky bacon??

I invite everyone to enjoy a video I set to some of his music, and reflect on
his priceless contributions.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YReSQfSBz4k>

~~~
duairc
Where did you find his music? I remember seeing on his Wikipedia article
before that he made music, but I was able to find very little about it.

~~~
levinalex
i tried to build a torrent: <http://tinyurl.com/ktrjs8> don't know if it
actually works yet.

~~~
cpach
That link doesn't seem to work.

~~~
Deadsunrise
[http://web.archive.org/web/20071018035725/poignantguide.net/...](http://web.archive.org/web/20071018035725/poignantguide.net/sdtrk/)

THE SOUNDTRACK TO why's (poignant) guide to ruby

------
ananthrk
The title is inappropriate (without really knowing what happened to _why).
Only his online identify is no more!

~~~
mbreese
I don't know about that. I think _why was his online identity... only
sometimes he ventured into the real-world to talk to people.

So, perhaps it is accurate, since it seems like the online persona has
vanished, so in a way _why is no more.

Maybe the real person needed to escape from the persona... who knows?

~~~
ananthrk
_Technically_ _why is his online persona and I can _now_ understand/analyze
your argument. But my first thought after reading the title was "OMG!!". Not
fair.

------
n8agrin
_why just posted a new repo on github: <http://github.com/why/lol/tree/master>

EDIT: Weird, the repo description is "wtf adam, are you this slow". Hope he
didn't get hacked.

EDIT 2: original link is dead.

~~~
gamache
That does not appear to be the same 'why' account as before. 0 followers,
created today.

~~~
judofyr
Probably some guy just registered the username after _why deleted it.

------
emullet
A guy I know used to work at Inetz. Here's a small chat exerpt from a few
minutes ago... Confirmation that the guy that worked at Inetz is _why. Perhaps
take it with a grain of salt.

emullet you worked at Inetz right?

friend 4:20 yeah

emullet 4:20 You work with a guy named Jonathan Gillette ?

friend 4:21 not allowed to answer that

emullet 4:21 lol why do you say that?

friend 4:21 but I've heard that a lot of his stuff "disappeared" today

emullet 4:21 ya you know whats up?

friend 4:21 nope

emullet 4:21 its very odd kinda cool he worked with you

------
rufugee
Interestingly enough, even an interview of his has disappeared, while others
on the site continue to work:

HN post re: inteview: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=483207>
<http://_why.usesthis.com/> <http://usesthis.com>

~~~
waferbaby
sorry about that, i moved it to its own site.

------
netghost
That's terrible, his code and posts always brightened my day.

------
generalk
There's a new repository up on his Github:
<http://github.com/why/lol/tree/master>

Description: wtf adam, are you this slow

I'm guessing he got hacked.

Edit: Nevermind, the repo's been deleted.

~~~
benatkin
Apparently there's no holding period for deleted names on GitHub.

If he wanted his twitter account to be taken by somebody else, he could have
renamed it before deleting it. If you rename a twitter account, the old name
is freed up instantly, but if you delete an account, it is held for an unknown
period of time.

------
fogus
Perhaps he's rebooting his online identity?

<http://www.jonathanpaulgillette.com/>

~~~
blasdel
That's just weird enough to be plausible -- there's pictures of the Shoes
shoes, kitties, rainbows, needlepoint, and Tom Cruise giving a piggy back
ride.

~~~
DTrejo
<http://www.jonathanpaulgillette.com/about.html>

~~~
cpach
404 not found

~~~
blasdel
I think that might have been intentional on the part of the GP.

Cheap shared hosting with hijacked 404 pages is not very _why

------
randrews
I had a copy of Potion cloned on my machine, so I stuck it on Github. If
someone has a newer one, please post it, or let me pull from you or something:
<http://github.com/randrews/potion>

_why had a lot of projects, we can probably preserve most of them just with
people pushing stuff they had cloned.

~~~
carbon8
This one has commits through Aug 11/12:
<http://github.com/adamsanderson/potion/tree/master>

~~~
randrews
Just pulled it and updated mine. Thanks!

If nothing else, this is an excellent test of Git's distributed-self-healing
goodness.

I really hope he comes back though.

------
asenchi
Wow, one of the few personalities to ever remain truly anonymous on the
Internet vanishes in a day. Sad sad day. :(

~~~
gaius
No, his real name has been on HN before.

~~~
asenchi
Do you have a link for this, as far as I know, no one knows his real name,
job, etc.

~~~
burke
<http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1507505>

Though I'm not entirely certain the authors didn't just make up a name to fit
the citation style. I don't see any reason why they would have any information
the internet at large doens't.

~~~
mcantelon
Doing a search for "ruby Malsky" brings up _why stuff. I think Malsky is a
character in some of _why's works.

------
pfisch
His job could have a stipulation in the contract that they own everything he
creates. Wouldn't that make him potentially civilly liable for his open source
contributions, as well as these books and other things he has made.

------
eapen
My guess is that he got hired by an intelligence agency.

~~~
xoai
That could be right! I thought so.

------
nevans
I learned ruby via his blog, via his poignant guide, and via the older edition
copy of the pitchaxe which he had hosted on his site. I really hope he's not
going into seclusion for good. :-(

------
myobie
I was playing with hackityhack last night, trying to find a way to contribute
to it. It's very important to me that young people have an easy way to learn
programming and I think he was really on the right track.

------
RyanMcGreal
Version 0.5 of __why's Poignant Guide to Ruby_ is still available on
Rubyforge:

<http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=183>

------
igorhvr
Does anyone have a copy of all the source code he published?

Specifically, does anyone have a copy of his Potion
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=425258>) repository somewhere online?

~~~
netghost
Try here: <http://github.com/adamsanderson/potion/tree/master> There might be
a more recent one, but that's within a week.

------
emartin24
Don't assume that _why is the one removing his online identity...I've seen
this happen with other people - and it was the work of a malicious hacker.

~~~
timinman
I want to believe this, but then I remembered denial is one of the first
phases of grief.

------
blhack
I'm sure this comment will get lost in all the clutter, but:

I, up until today, didn't give two shits about ruby. I know that I had heard
of this craaazzzyyyy "Ruby on Rails" jazz from about a year ago, and I know
that people talked about it all the time, but I grabbed onto my python, looked
the other way, and called it good.

Now, I want to learn ruby...

This guy seemed like he was all about teaching people Ruby, perhaps this was
an attention grab?

------
bartwe
_why and Zed walk into a formum, the matter - antimatter reaction destroys the
net for Gigabytes around.

------
Arubis
At the risk of being a little insensitive, this is a very good argument in
favor of DCVS's.

------
gourneau
"This is the true joy in life ... being used for a purpose recognized by
yourself as a mighty one ... being a force of Nature instead of a feverish
selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will
not devote itself to making you happy ... I am of the opinion that my life
belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do
for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the
harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no
brief candle to me. It’s a sort of splendid torch which I’ve got to hold up
for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before
handing on to future generations."

\-- George Bernard Shaw

<http://tr.im/why_burn>

I lament the departure of _why. However, it looks like his flame will continue
to live on, even if he would have hoped otherwise. Thanks _why

------
hbeaver
I am very,very sad. He is one of the primary reasons I'm a ruby programmer
too.

------
hady_af
I have an opinion I would like to share, from what am reading online, it seems
that his last tweet was a bit angry at the programming world, us in a more
specific term. Us developers whom have learned so much from him... What I feel
is that it's like an anger wave inside him, that like "alright, people are not
thankful for what I do, let's see what happens when everything goes down...
now what will they do without me" dunno, but I cannot find an explanation of
why even his source codes are down.. really hope he's blessed by god somewhere
feeling better and if that's the case, being angry at us, hope he feels better
soon. guys I think maybe we should do him a website, you know like a call for
his return, who's with me?

~~~
edibot42
I am

~~~
devynci
I'm with ya too :)

------
luckyland
_why does as he wishes, and he has never seemed like the kind of person who
lives with regret.

------
kjell
"this girl at the pool is draggin such a stack of foam noodles it’s like she’s
a little beaver going to dam up the diving board"

from _why's twitter, 8/12/09.

I hope the guy surfaces somewhere soon. One of the most outwardly joyful
computer folks I've ever seen.

------
lylo
it's the mystique, the razzle dazzle, the enigma. his fabulous body of work
will live on, restored, uploaded and duplicated by hundreds of devotees and
admirers. he'll be reincarnated. a _why by any other name would still smell as
sweet. it's better to burn out than to fade away. ladies and gentlemen, elvis
has left the building.

------
chaelus
I'm afraid my impression of _why from what I've read lately is that he wasn't
exactly happy. Adding to that.. has anyone read the last few pages of chapter
6 of his guide recently? Apparently his sister was drinking and got alcohol
poisoning or might have been on drugs. All in all it seems he was deeply
troubled by this and by his deteriorating relationship to his sister. When did
he write this and is this stuff about his sister true? I really, really hope
it isn't and that he or his sister didn't do something tragic.

~~~
devynci
I think that was all a joke. He likes to make up stories, you see.

~~~
chaelus
Well thats the problem with people who tell lots of stories isn't it? You can
never tell if a story is actually true or not.. At least it does seem to me to
be a remarkably depressing section in an otherwise fun and quirky book.

------
avit
I feel compelled to dispatch an anonymous postcard to _why, just to say
thanks. And to wish the best farewell. Maybe I'll find one with a furry animal
on the front, like a lumberjack or something. Tomorrow.

You see, phoning seems rather creepy. And besides, I really don't have
anything to ask him, or of him. He's taught us all so much already.

Yeah, a postcard seems best. Just a message in a bottle, a ping into the void.
Naturally, the letter shall read in a language known well among those he has
enlightened.

Thanks, old friend.

------
123581321345589
A traceroute to whytheluckystiff.com ends with <http://cewki.com> , which
contains a link to this thread.

_why, you inspired me to be a developer.

------
datums
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EPzGpwnekg&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EPzGpwnekg&feature=related)
Sounds like him.

------
thorn0
Jeff Yates' disappearance is the similar case. He is JavaScript developer,
books author and creator of PBWizard, one of the very first WYSIWYG editors.
He had site pbwizard.com with many articles. However only one of these article
can be found in web today ([http://www.dotvoid.com/2001/03/using-the-range-
object-in-moz...](http://www.dotvoid.com/2001/03/using-the-range-object-in-
mozilla/)).

------
ssn
<http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://whytheluckystiff.net/>

~~~
cpach
If anyone's about to mirror the stuff on his web sites, it might be wise to
act quickly. Wayback Machine always checks the current robots.txt for a given
domain, so it's possible to block files that have already been archived.

------
yaskall
I keep asking myself: "Why _why?" and "_why, why?" and "Why _why, _why?" and
"_why, why, why, why!?" and "_why, why, _why, why..."...

------
frankjones
Found this _why's tweet from Google's cache. I'm not quite sure what this is
about - and everybody might have already seen this, but here goes:

"burying myself feet first in the woods with the hope that this will lead to a
career as a much beloved and sought after mouth-under-a-rock."

Link to Google's cached _why Twitter page: <http://bit.ly/2h5PKy>

------
noodle
i couldn't help but think of this exchange when i saw the _why incident:

 _\- Nobody died. How can you kill an idea? How can you kill the
personification of an action?

\- Then what died? Who are you mourning?

\- A point of view.

Cain, Elbis O'Shaughnessy, and Abel, in Sandman: The Wake_

(yes i'm double posting this, i feel that it is also appropriate here in the
original thread)

------
devynci
Hey everyone! _why the lucky stiff's Flickr account still exists!
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/_why>

Either he or the hackers or whoever is responsible for this forgot about his
Flickr account.

------
ch0wda
camping 4eva!

~~~
masomenos
note to downvoters: "camping" is a brilliant and bizarre microframework for
MVC web apps, courtesy of our friend why.

------
kallistec
internet/_why #=> SystemStackError: stack level too deep

I remember reading on his twitter something like, "a caller asks: should I use
hpricot or nokogiri? If you're not me, use nokogiri. If you're me, then stop
being me"

------
yooshooa
in pursuit of this new knowledge

i have discovered that every... easily accessible (so far)... copy of his
poignant guide to ruby

has disappeared as well

what an eff you

i'm pretty dissapointed.

if anyone has a copy, i would love to talk... i'm certainly the intended
audience.

yooshooa@yahoo

~~~
tcoffeep
I have a pdf that has up to chapter 6.

Mediafire link (is.gd'd) : <http://is.gd/2p1Jd>

~~~
mrflip
<http://github.com/whymirror/poignantguide/tree/master>

------
delano
Thanks for all the fish, _why!

~~~
mattmcknight
He should probably be the one thanking us for the fish. (And we should be the
ones preparing for the imminent destruction of our planet).

------
aslakhellesoy
A few years back I read Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. Somewhere in the middle
of the book someone says "why the lucky stiff!"

Does anyone know what that means?

~~~
anigbrowl
'stiff' is 30s slang for a working class person (as in 'working stiff'). This
would be like saying 'he really lucked out!' today - a mixture of admiration
and mild jealousy for someone's (possibly unearned) good fortune.

------
sunaku
_why's actions remind me of a quote from Hagakure:

"In the Kamigata area, they have a sort of tiered lunchbox they use for a
single day when flower viewing. Upon returning, they throw them away,
trampling them underfoot. __The end is important in all things. __" (emphasis
added)

Rest in peace, _why! You were but a hero, but now you are a legend.

------
chanux
Loved his neat work why's poignant guide to ruby though I'm not a ruby guy. :(

But why he'd commit a virtual suicide like this?

------
teeja
Guess he wants to avoid the Mitnick Dilemma?

[http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2009/08/kevin-
mitnick...](http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2009/08/kevin-mitnick-
prominent-hacker-victim/)

------
_giu
looks a little bit suspicious to me: <http://twitpic.com/ehm2h> (_why created
a repository called "lol" 30 minutes ago)

~~~
timdorr
Wrong. "why" created that account, which has only been a member since today.
"_why" hasn't done anything.

~~~
mr_justin
_why's account on github has always been "why", presumably because github does
not allow an account name to start with an underscore.

_why deleted his account and somebody snatched it up real quick

~~~
malvim
Also, the only current repo in this account (now called "because" and not
"lol" anymore) has been CLONED by two other people! They made some commits,
even. wtf?

~~~
devynci
The new /why account is a placeholder. The because repo is a thing that says
some things about _why, stuff like theories on why he might have done it. Not
a hack. (although I'm still not sure about the 'lol' thing...)

------
ivankirigin
but not totally gone on twitter:
<http://search.twitter.com/search?q=RT+%40_why>

------
crnixon
It'd be a good idea to collect links to backups of his various projects. Does
anyone have a copy of Hobix or Potion laying around?

~~~
calcnerd256
Maybe his disappearance is an art piece about how things can or cannot be
erased from the 'net.

------
devynci
<http://stores.lulu.com/_why> is gone too. :( Man, he really went to town!

------
mmaaxx
Maybe he just needs a break from the internet?

------
jpteti
His GitHub account is back! <http://github.com/why>

~~~
revyver
It's supposedly a placeholder for when he comes back.

------
tcoffeep
:( A sad day.

------
doki_pen
A clue: <http://away.autognosis.org/>

------
levinalex
here's two more videos from _why from his OSCON 2005 talk:
<http://bit.ly/1atNHU> ("Sinking Symphony" and "Foxes Tall and Small on
Modules")

------
Action
What happened to him? Has he got any problems?

------
Zoasterboy
Why's dead. Ruby lives on.

------
obelix74
omg, where will I go for my hpricot documentation now?

------
ddemchuk
I would love to see _why come back as _whynot

------
elliottcable
Good riddance.

~~~
elliottcable
Of course, downvote me because I’m not mourning somebody who, if you’ll
notice, isn’t dead /-:

~~~
chipotlecoyote
I'm betting they're downvoting you because your comment was kind of douchey.
It's okay not to be concerned about Why's abrupt disappearance from online-
ness, but slamming other people for being concerned about it? And "good
riddance?" Really?

~~~
devynci
Yes, but I agree with him: he will come back. It is unlike him to leave
without a message.

