Why, oh why, _why?

[Jörg W Mittag]

Not sure if you are aware, but _why intentionally destroyed all his
work before leaving. That's not consistent with "people come and
go". I don't plan to set fire to my apartment when I move out....

That's quite an unfortunate crossing of thoughtstreams that put Guy
Decoux and a burning apartment in the same discussion thread ¡K

Kind of reminds me of the TUI press conference after the 2004 Tsunami:
"17 of our guests haven't resurfaced yet".

jwm

 

[Brad Mr]

_why the lucky stiff appears to have disappeared from the internets!
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/08/20/resig-why

On thing i do know is that he was working on Shoes 2, and on his Shoe
web site he had references to two other languages that he though was
neat (Scala or Clojure I think), but the other one he mentioned a lot
and deserved a look at was REBOL.
http://www.rebol.com/index-lang.html

First built by one of the creators of Amiga OS. The goal is to be the
premier Internet language, to remain small (well under a meg for the
whole thing), and super easy to use (but breaks many standard
programming conventions that a lot did not like. Well REBOL 3.0 has
been in the works for over a year and will most likely be the last big
huge effort to get this programming language to "Grow Up" and get out
there before its time passes it bye.
http://www.rebol.com/rebol3/motivation.html

He may have just cut all Ruby ties to work on this language and help the
5 man team. In his Poignant Guide he points out that he had actually
looked at Ruby before, but put it down thinking "Poor little language
does not stand a chance."

Well Ruby is here to stay, but perhaps this interesting internet
language (REBOL) being rebuilt from the ground up has called _why to its
cause.

Check it out and see if that may be where he vanished to.

 

[Gregory Brown]

That's quite an unfortunate crossing of thoughtstreams that put Guy
Decoux and a burning apartment in the same discussion thread =85

Kind of reminds me of the TUI press conference after the 2004 Tsunami:
"17 of our guests haven't resurfaced yet".

Yes, I realized this after posting but was trying not to call attention to =
it.
Rather terrible trick of my subconscious, my apologies.

 

[Eleanor McHugh]

On thing i do know is that he was working on Shoes 2, and on his Shoe
web site he had references to two other languages that he though was
neat (Scala or Clojure I think), but the other one he mentioned a lot
and deserved a look at was REBOL.
http://www.rebol.com/index-lang.html

I know _why? had a background in the Amiga scene so it's no surprise
that he mentioned Rebol. There are also certain conceptual
similarities between Shoes and Rebol/View which hint at a similar
outlook on the nature of networked applications, although the
underlying languages have different priorities.

Unfortunately it's very hard for a language to gain traction unless a
particularly successful project is based on it and Rebol currently
lacks that. The closed source commercial model behind development also
makes it that bit less attractive in a world overflowing with powerful
open source languages.


Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-brains.net

 

[Brad Mr]

Eleanor McHugh wrote:

I know _why? had a background in the Amiga scene so it's no surprise
that he mentioned Rebol. There are also certain conceptual
similarities between Shoes and Rebol/View which hint at a similar
outlook on the nature of networked applications, although the
underlying languages have different priorities.

Unfortunately it's very hard for a language to gain traction unless a
particularly successful project is based on it and Rebol currently
lacks that. The closed source commercial model behind development also
makes it that bit less attractive in a world overflowing with powerful
open source languages.


Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-brains.net

Except in REBOL 3 all parts but the most core components are going to be
opened sourced. I wish I knew more about C I would gladly contribute.

 

[Eleanor McHugh]

Except in REBOL 3 all parts but the most core components are going
to be
opened sourced. I wish I knew more about C I would gladly contribute.

For many people that caveat alone will rightly or wrongly sway their
perception of the language.


Ellie

Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-brains.net

 

[Michal Suchanek]

te.

For many people that caveat alone will rightly or wrongly sway their
perception of the language.

I for myself try to stick to opensource where possible.

There are some ideological reasons that might or might not apply in
particular cases but there are certainly very pragmatic reasons as
well.

Since I have the source I can easily do minor adjustments to the
software and perhaps try to debug any issues I encounter. I have never
worked with a compiler or interpreter regularly without encountering
issues so this part is very important for me. Even if I cannot find
the cause myself I can consult others and test patches easily. When
the original author quits and there is interest in the community the
software can continue to evolve can be seen with _why's work now.

So unless I *really* need a feature that is only available in
non-opensource software I choose an opensource alternative where
available.

Nothing is more annoying than a "freeware" that has a minor glitch
which would be dead simple to fix but you have to rewrite it because
you do not have the source.

Thanks

Michal

 

[David Masover]

Among the terrible consequences of this, one of the lesser but still
notable is that someone with the power needs to edit ruby-lang.org to
remove the link to tryruby.hobix.com

That is sad, and probably the first time I've been truly burnt by an online
service...

That is, while I imagine someone may have his "freaky freaky sandbox"
somewhere, I'll no longer be able to point people to that amazing
introduction. It was something like fifteen or twenty minutes, even for non-
programmers, and served as an amazing introduction to Ruby and programming in
general.

Perhaps I'm being selfish, but I think that's one thing I'll miss the most.
Much of his other work has been either saved or replicated somewhere (many
seem to be using Nokogiri instead of Hpricot these days), and while I enjoyed
his sense of humor, I found the poignant guide to be confusing more than
anything else.

But that in particular, and perhaps where Hackity was eventually going -- I
actually sat my mother down with that, and she was able to understand what was
going on, and had fun doing it.

I suppose what's creepy now is looking in Google Cache and seeing him describe
himself as someone "who will die young and make no lasting impression." Like
everyone else here, I hope he's alright.

 

[Tony Arcieri]

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

That is sad, and probably the first time I've been truly burnt by an online
service...

That is, while I imagine someone may have his "freaky freaky sandbox"
somewhere, I'll no longer be able to point people to that amazing
introduction. It was something like fifteen or twenty minutes, even for
non-
programmers, and served as an amazing introduction to Ruby and programming
in
general.

Perhaps I'm being selfish, but I think that's one thing I'll miss the most.

I entirely agree. I must've pointed at least a dozen people who were
interested in trying to learn to program but had no idea how to start at
tryruby, and many of them "got it" from that more than any other tutorial.
While it wouldn't be too difficult to duplicate the sandboxed VM-on-the-web,
it'd be much harder to replicate the easy and informative tutorial that went
along with it.

 

[David Masover]

Destroy it? Didn't he just make it unavailable? And it wasn't as if
what he took away was the community's documentation of Ruby, just his
own projects to which other people had contributed.

Best not to trivialize those contributions. Not to mention the things built on
top of them... I admit, when I heard about this, my first reaction was a sigh
of relief that Mechanize is built on Nokogiri now.

Considering all the good he did for Ruby over the years, all for free,
I don't think anybody should be overly critical of an abrupt departure.

I can cut him, the person, some slack for that.

But, it doesn't negate what the departure did. How much effort would it have
been to post some amount of warning, at least, rather than forcing us to
mirror everything after the fact?

 

[brabuhr]

st.

I entirely agree. =A0I must've pointed at least a dozen people who were
interested in trying to learn to program but had no idea how to start at
tryruby, and many of them "got it" from that more than any other tutorial=

 

[Ken Bloom]

_why the lucky stiff appears to have disappeared from the internets!
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/08/20/resig-why

I find it somewhat unsurprising that somebody who was totally anonymous
in the first place might up and disappear one day.

--Ken

 

[Mark T]

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

Hi _why!

Somehow, I had premonition you would make this 'dis-appearance'.
Understandable in a _why sort of _way.
All the best to your efforts.
You've given some great handles to the pot.

---para

 

[Brad Mr]

I find it somewhat unsurprising that somebody who was totally anonymous
in the first place might up and disappear one day.

--Ken

Good point, may have been something he planned from the start, something
he expected to do one day just not sure when. I guess he felt Ruby was
well supported and entrenched (for the right reasons) and had helped
enough people he was no longer needed to a certain degree.

But if you think about, how many stories have there been over the
Centuries about a man or women in a whole class and level of there own
in something. That they were referred to as "THE" person regarding "X".
But in the end, they some how mysteriously vanish.

Me Personally i hope he is off to help the REBOL team in making REBOL 3
a reality before its time passes by.

 

[Rob Biedenharn]

No wait, I meant the MiB, of course.

And in that case, he'd be known as Y

 

[will]

G'day people,

I hope we are all well today. I'm looking at a kind-of 4gl type thing
(fourth generation language - 4GL). I had the idea that REBOL was out
and about a long time back. I stand corrected, the wikipedia says
1997.

Don't call me crazy if I'm thinkin' there was REBOL before 1980 ~
Wasn't it a kind of parallel with FORTH & PICK as better ways to live
-- Stemming from Algol68 and Simula? I had an Amiga back then, and
the poor thing went to the tip, 3 house moves ago. I Simula, Algol68
and Simscript are the reasons I jumped into C++ when it 'arrived'. I
still miss the Algol 60/68 call-by-name hey!

NOT according to the REBOL.org area -- In fact, my recollection was a
"rebol" thing that was build on COBOL. I'd love to know if I'm memory-
revising/ hallucinating?

Anyway, I am [Generally] interested in conversations about things like
PICK or 4GL-s. Mail direct.

Looking at REBOL ... It reminds me very much of the MT983 financial
terminals and B-series from Burroughs (now Unisys). When I first saw
that ... I was reminded of AWK, Snobol and the Hayes modem command
syntax.

No wonder I'm tired today !

Take care,

will

 

[Jackie Winn]

And in that case, he'd be known as Y

What is nsa we people dont know about it

____________________

http://www.gigbucks.com/

 

[Josef 'Jupp' Schugt]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

* Jackie Winn, 06/16/2010 01:41 PM:

What is nsa we people dont know about it

NSA: National Security Agency, formerly known as No Such Agency (because
for many years its existence was not acknowledged by the U.S.
government). Their motto is supposed to be "never say anything".

As it is mostly the case if no country is given it is a United States of
America agency. It is responsible for the collection and analysis of
foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence. In short: They
are the big brother of all people unless they live in the USA and don't
communicate with any foreigner.

Rumor has it that they are able to eavesdrop any communication that is
at least in part transmitted wirelessly (for example via satellite) and
almost any other communication that isn't either face-to-face or
transported by means of physically written word as well.

Josef 'Jupp' Schugt
- --
Die Gedanken sind frei. Ausnahmen regelt eine EU-Verordnung.
PGP key (id 6CC6574F) http://wwwkeys.de.pgp.net/
http://penpen.soup.io/ http://twitter.com/penpendede
Werde Mitglied der Piratenpartei! http://web.piratenpartei.de/
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=tfnT
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[Rick DeNatale]

NSA: National Security Agency, formerly known as No Such Agency (because
for many years its existence was not acknowledged by the U.S.
government). Their motto is supposed to be "never say anything".

Now that you told him, you're going to have to shoot him. <G>

--
Rick DeNatale

Blog: http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/
Github: http://github.com/rubyredrick
Twitter: @RickDeNatale
WWR: http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/9021-rick-denatale
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rickdenatale

 

[andrew mcelroy]

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

Now that you told him, you're going to have to shoot him. <G>

There's a CIA Black site for that (TM)

Andrew McElroy