Sometimes I find it hard to believe that such a cheerful character has ended up being so polarizing. People both lionize and demonize this guy, and neither one is fair. _Why is not the greatest genius who ever lived, but he inspired a lot of people to get into programming, is a very witty and creative person, and a pretty damn good hacker as well. I could think of far worse people to honor.
A year later, I'm still bitter about this.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
Martin Luther King day cool.<p>Nelson Mandela day, I can see why ;), even if his life didn't affect me personally in any way.<p>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.<p>But whyday?
It mentions that Hackety Hack need contributions, they're still actively developing here:<p><a href="http://hacketyhack.heroku.com/" rel="nofollow">http://hacketyhack.heroku.com/</a>
Guy came along, a bit unconventional and smarter than the average. Wrote and made available some very good software for its time. Inspired a following, of people who had no business trying to be whimsical or clever. Guy went away. Weeping sadness, betrayal!
Has it really been a year?<p>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.<p>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.
I thought the guy made it clear that he didn't want to be _why anymore, or didn't want _why to be a "thing" anymore.<p>Do you really think _why would want you to celebrate Whyday? Let it go already.
I'm not a Rubyist but there is something magically about _why. He should be an inspiration to the advocates of all programming and we should try to emulate some of the whimsy and fun he brought to the craft.<p>Programming will be a lot better with a little more of _why-like magic in it.
Yeah, no thanks. Programmers already ignore best practices and already have too much fun, look at the lack of good documentation for a lot of projects and look at the crappiness of most apps or the piles of bugs they contain. There are very few programmers who act professionally, I don't know why you would want to celebrate that fact.