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.
That said, I appreciate that people have made all of his works available online, and those projects stand on their own merits. I don't find much value in celebrating _why himself, since that's his personal project, not ours.
However, what about a nice goodbye message, handing over the running sites to some predecessor(s)?
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?
A blog entry on how he inspired you, how he changed your views on programming and life?
That would do it I think.
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.
I think he knew that they were in git, so nothing would really be lost.
_why gave Rubyists permission to have fun, make messes, and not take yourself seriously. Thanks _why for inspiring me to Try Ruby. I'm teaching my 8 year old son some Ruby today in your honor.
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.
Otherwise, the projects that WhyDay is encouraging are meant to be creative. Without creativity, we stagnate. No one is suggesting that a 4kb implementation of X become part of standard libraries. However, there could be endlessly useful things learned from such exercises even if its just a creative outlet for many programmers.
Also, please update your links everyone, I have http://hackety-hack.com now.
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.
Has it only been a year?
We miss you _why
Do you really think _why would want you to celebrate Whyday? Let it go already.
Programming will be a lot better with a little more of _why-like magic in it.
I wonder _why I wonder _why
I wonder _why I wonder!
... with apologies to Richard Feynman, another jester.
