"i love working on an obscure book. people cling to ideas,
because they're supposed to be vouchers for a million
dollars. no, write an obscure book. build something
outside all that pressure. i guess treehouses for kids
qualify." - _why 20 Sep 2004
There has always been some dark corners in _why's writing, with some dreary biographical detyails permeating.
I 2000-2001, his parents divorced, and his father went through a mental breakdown.
A bit later he writes that suicide would be the only thing preventing him from finishing some work.
Death is present in several chapters of the poingnant guide.
Then comes this: "narco+alco have
turned kooky people i love into obliterated people i love.
god, god, god, please keep her alive." in the post linked above.
The 4th version of shoes should have been nicked "murder". One of his last tweets was "i thought that RIP was strictly for cremation." ... An I find the Shoes book scary.
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Overall, his universe wasn't as fun as he tried to present it.
I liked _why's code, his tools, shoes, hpricot I think was his (it is really a work of art, a truly great library). However I didn't find his writing helpful - never was able to learn anything from it and it mostly got in the way when I tried to search for things when trying to work out how to do something in ruby.
I guess I wasn't his audience, but some awesome libs.
In all seriousness, this is why therapy and medication can seriously help a young person who's addressing difficult issues. When I was working on GNOME, we all knew _why was different. He used to come into #smooth and argue about colors and gradients, and use "beautiful rainbows" as argumentation, rather than progression, style and color theory.
After Reiser and seeing _why in action these last few years, I really think that there is a precedent for a very serious eye to be turned toward mental health in hackers. We spend so much time internalizing, focused into our worlds, that we hardly look outside, even when our colleagues are crying for help.
