I think that for now we should close that chapter. _why is gone and no
matter what, he seems to have done so on his own and made up his mind
completely.
that doesn't make the move right or respectful in any way.
Noone needs to be *respectful*. I do not understand the stipulation to
be *respectful*. It also does not make any move "right" or "wrong" only
because others judge it in a specific way. There is no "wrong" or
"right". If that were, why would we have wars for example?
Behaviour of people is different, and motivations vary. And the internet
really is not 1:1 real world ...
Fact remains that _why is gone for now, and to complain about "he
destroyed the work of others" is like complaining around as you do:
Destroying the many thousands of hours of work by OTHER PEOPLE simply
because it's HIS stuff, out of the blue and with no warning whatsoever,
will never, ever be looked at as "respectable".
Why complain? Also this is your stipulation. It is not as if he is
forced to fullfil any criteras others bestow on him. For example, in
your paragraph I would ask - how could it be that a single man destroys
thousands of hours of work by other people? Were these people so stupid
to not keep their own work?
It seems to strange what you write here ...
Personally, I had a mixed mind about _why.
The plus side - which I believe clearly overwhelms the downside - was
that he was that he was extremely creative, and appeared friendly (at
least when I wrote him).
Having his talent in the ruby community was a big plus. Many people
liked his work, like the poignant guide, tryruby (the official ruby
webpage really needs to have this, so people can try out ruby without
installing it locally, for testing purpose), shoes and so on. A great
many cool things. Better to have 1 _why than 10 zedshaws in a community
...
His work for yaml also was great. I mean, yaml is great. People defend
XML so often, like this way "you use XML not for how it was meant to
be", but when I see people doing XML config files, and compare these to
the simplicity of a yaml config file (or other simpler formats), I know
that something is very wrong in the XML camp. People often do not
recognize that doing things in a specific way is bad - or there are
other ways, which are BETTER.
Creativity and Elegancy is a universal trait. Shoes was elegant. The
comics were elegant and creative. Come to think about it, we should get
10 new different _why's to compensate for the one _why being gone.
The downside for me was that it appeared as if _why moved from project
to project like the wind. When he seemed bored with it, he stopped it
more or less. See hpricot. Also I had the impression that he left shoes,
more or less, to play with potion or other crazy ideas (a new
programming language? Oh man...). The poignant guide was confusing me
actually more than it helped me understand - I am a little dumb. The
pickaxe was much easier for me to understand. I know that _why was picky
about this topic, even moreso because a VERY FEW others very critical,
and he seemed to pick up this more readily.
I guess it is easier to feel irritated about others complaining, than
for those who cheer and praise a work. Bit unfair to neglect those that
cheer for someone.
And if anyone feels too irritated - lighten up.
Criticism needs to exist in creative communities as well, without
stifling creativity.
