_why's Estate

Indeed, I thought suicide was implied. Not so much tact, as it just didn't occur to me that it needed spelling out.

The difference between Zed and _why is that _why never believed in an engineering ethos.

I wasn't happy that tryruby is so annihilated. The version they recovered still has issues. I tried using it to get my 14-year-old brother into Ruby, and there was too many bugs for him to smoothly guide through it. But at the same time, I know nothing of _why's decision to remove it, and I won't pretend like I know one so that I can bash him. If one day he returns and explains himself and I find him wanting, then I'll criticize him, but I'm not going to spew hate in his direction even if I do.

I'm simply grateful for all the things he gave the community, no strings attached. If the day he'd gone we never saw any of his work again, he'd still have made me a better person, inspired me to try things I'd never done. Beyond that he never had a responsibility to me and so I'm not angry. Hell, I'm still discovering new things of his — the music from his old band is playing through on iTunes now, and it's inspired stuff. (I could further the comparison by saying that Zed writes a lot about practicing guitar, but the music he's made is derivative; _why's music is haphazard and amateur but it evokes something. But that's not fair to Zed.)

As I said, I respect some things about Zed, and if he didn't spend his time being an arse to other people I'd respect him a lot more. But all the time he spends being negative really irks me, especially when it's targeted towards one of the most positive people in the community he left so violently.

If a known troll attacks a good guy in a nasty tone without knowing all the facts and it's clear he wants the attention to be turned to him because he's jealous, I think it's fair to call him an idiot.

Exactly what I'm talking about, Zed. You like pretending that you're capable of instantly judging people, and once you do you sink your teeth in and never let go.

So I'm writing a blog in college where I pretty openly write whatever I feel like, on impulse, with a big warning saying I write whatever words come to mind and that I frequently write things without thinking them through. One of those things was some speculation about the social niche of the programmer, which somebody saw fit to submit to HN. (Curiously, just this week there was a conversation about that, and I was able to contribute some much-matured thoughts.) I protested against the submission - it was written at 4 AM and I made no attempt to claim it was anything good - but because it's HN and I love most of the community, I figured I'd engage the people commenting about it, not because I have a holier-than-thou complex like you but because I like arguing with people when I suspect I'm being stupid. That's how I learn.

Of course, that's not all that was happening with my life. I wrote that in the middle of some stressful school stuff, my personal life was in the middle of a nasty crunch, and I happened to be in a place I utterly hated. That meant I had a very bleak, nasty mindset, and that expressed itself in my writing.

But you jumped on the comment I made and latched on, formed a summary, and you refuse to let go. Even then, when I came back from my 6AM class to see your rant and apologized for writing a half-garbled, drowsy comment, you thought the best procedure would be to go about insulting the kid who'd just told you he'd said something stupid. I didn't instantly drop out of the conversation because I figured you might have something interesting to say. You didn't. You bitched and moaned and then tweeted a shitstorm telling all the people they agreed with me that you thought they were terrible people.

So yeah, Zed. That was disillusioning. I'd seen you as a guy whose Ruby bitching was a breath of fresh air in the community, and that your gripes were legitimate. After you posted what you did, I had to seriously reconsider your past attitude, and I concluded what I just posted today, namely that for all your intelligence you've got some emotional issues that leak into a lot of your work. Sometimes I see what you're working on and I really dig it, because you're doing it to solve a problem that needs solving. Other times I read something of yours and it comes across as self-inflated and pissy. Not that I hold that against you - I still keep a secondary blog to bitch and moan into so that it doesn't leak into my main writing - but in this particular case, I thought my viewpoint on your _why rant would contribute to the conversation.

And you sure as hell haven't earned enough street cred to have any kind of opinion on the matter.

I've been a major participant in online conversations for six years. I read a shitstorm and I write a shitstorm. I interned with a major company on the merits of what I was writing back when I was seventeen. My current blog is four months old and I get 15,000 unique visitors every month. No, I'm not Ruby-famous for writing an overlong bitchfest, but I think that what I did is even more impressive, considering I like to switch between writing about modernist poetry and GTD and the occasional short fiction piece. 15,000 people a month think that I'm interesting despite the lack of niche. And in my capacity as an amateur theme designer (emphasis on amateur), I field dozens of emails a week about my work, fix bugs, and just yesterday was asked for the first time about doing some commissioned work, without once seeking any out actively.

I suggest next time you just shut your stupid mouth about me and other real hackers. You're a wannabe. When you got some real code under your belt, then you can come back and play with the big boys.

Dude, I'm a writer. I don't program. My passions involve essay writing, screenwriting, playwriting, poetry, fiction, forum posts... You get it? My chops are my writing. I do a bunch of other things on the side, but if you're asking for work I've done, I can give you a few hundred thousand words of polished work. As I've said before, even on this thread, that's what drew me to _why. I know nothing about his programming skills, although the products of his I used worked and he made programming more appealing to me than anybody else ever has, but his musical and writing output thrills me.

Until then, keep playing the flute or uh writing screen plays or founding companies or whatever other insignificant little events your life needs to define your personality to other people but not to yourself.

You kind of have these masculinity issues, like when you tweeted that if _why had been a black belt like you maybe he wouldn't have felt the need to quit the community. You say "keep playing the flute" like it's a bad thing.

But I didn't mention flutes or screen plays or companies here. I mentioned you. You kind of ignore that and go about insulting me. As a matter of fact, I haven't mentioned flute playing online for a year or so, because I haven't done anything interesting with it whatsoever. I put screenplays online and when I do a few hundred people read through it. I occasionally find that they've quoted my words online, so I guess my writing reached somebody.

But at the end of the day, you're the 30-year-old who gets so worked up over legitimate criticism that you call college kids names. Goes to show being a programmer doesn't instantly make you a man, amirite? Pathetic.

I am sorry it's not just this guy who thinks this, whoever he is and whatever his opinions are on other topics, you really are an embarrassment. Nobody cares if you are a "real hacker" or you are smart or if your online bombastic personality is a bit of trollishness put on just to stir people up etc. You are simply an attention seeker, and you have none of the class, style or taste that someone like _why had and will never be actually looked up to like he was. The attention you get is that directed to kids letting off fireworks when everyone is trying to get to sleep. Sure everyone probably did something like that in their youth, but you appear to have not grown out of it.

You have fallen victim to your own trolling in a way, as you are getting angry about someone getting angry at something you wrote to get people angry. So unless you were laughing when you wrote that (which I doubt, you genuinely seem angry) your trolling is self-destructive and extremely immature. Think about that, you actually spent time breeding anger in others and yourself. For what purpose? Get a punching bag, or exercise some other way, if you need to get rid of your emotions productively. When I see people like you it's not hate that is inspired it's pity that you never learned basic self-control and have to "excuse" your outbursts by saying it's all a joke.

Please grow up, people might respect you if you did. When I say "I would never ever do business with Zed or anyone he works for", you would no doubt say "I am a good hacker with tons of business I don't need your business. I am well off and my company understands I am more of an asset than a burden." But I am not denying you my business, I am denying you my respect.

Even with a tad of self-reference, you are headed the way of ESR (self-professing hacker status and all too). That is not a road I would want to be on. Best of luck.