Allow me to quote a randomly-chosen comment from this thread:
> _why's influence isn't only in code, but in thinking. And if you look around, for example on github, you will see a lot of people hacking away for fun, trying out new stuff and just doing something they love to do. Did _why start this trend? He didn't, but he was a big advocate of it.
Yes, that's right, this person appears to be seriously suggesting that _why could have been responsible for people hacking for fun (in the "I'm not saying that...", right after saying it kinda way).
> I'd argue his unique way of thinking has also pushed the boundaries of programming as a science in the way that calculus changed people's ways of thinking about math and physics.
As influential on programming as calculus was on maths and physics? Really? _why is on equal footing with Newton and Leibniz now?
> As for his strange charisma, I would say _why is to programming as Ramanujan was to mathematics.
This one suggests that _why is to programming as a Fellow of the Royal Society was to mathematics! Awesome!
> I always thought he was one of the most creative people currently working in any medium,
Yep. That one pretty much speaks for itself.
I mean, the _title_ of the article is "A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius".
Need I go on? I believe my use of the word "sycophantic" was justified and I stand by it. Genuine praise for someone's achievements is completely justified and should be given freely. This is not genuine praise. It appears to be a pissing contest between different people trying to find the most absurd hyperbole with which to describe the effect that _why had on them, the Ruby community, the programming world and the entire universe and all matter contained within it.
I think in large part all of this is fueled by loss and grief, wondering what might have been, or maybe trying to lay blame as to why '_why' left.
Most of it is really over the top, and you have to wonder how the non-ruby programmers get by, without access to _why's genius or his contribution to thinking in general.
_why was just some guy, he had a nice run at it, decided that it wasn't for him in the long term and proceeded to try to hit the 'undo' button. In a way it is good that most of the stuff got saved, if not we'd have an even larger problem, which is that the scope of his actual contributions would have become the stuff of legend. At least that keeps things a little bit grounded in reality.
Credit where credit is due, but let's keep some scope here _why was an ok guy while it lasted, but he certainly was no Newton, Leibniz or Ramanujan, and he did not put the 'fun' in programming except for the relatively small number of people that learned about programming through him. And for that last we should be grateful, and we should do more of it, and we should NOT destroy what we give to others to use as a base.
Especially for someone that wrote open source libraries his actions were totally unconscionable and they negate a lot of the positive feelings I would have had to his person otherwise.
> _why's influence isn't only in code, but in thinking. And if you look around, for example on github, you will see a lot of people hacking away for fun, trying out new stuff and just doing something they love to do. Did _why start this trend? He didn't, but he was a big advocate of it.
Yes, that's right, this person appears to be seriously suggesting that _why could have been responsible for people hacking for fun (in the "I'm not saying that...", right after saying it kinda way).
> I'd argue his unique way of thinking has also pushed the boundaries of programming as a science in the way that calculus changed people's ways of thinking about math and physics.
As influential on programming as calculus was on maths and physics? Really? _why is on equal footing with Newton and Leibniz now?
> As for his strange charisma, I would say _why is to programming as Ramanujan was to mathematics.
This one suggests that _why is to programming as a Fellow of the Royal Society was to mathematics! Awesome!
> I always thought he was one of the most creative people currently working in any medium,
Yep. That one pretty much speaks for itself.
I mean, the _title_ of the article is "A Tale Of A Post-Modern Genius".
Need I go on? I believe my use of the word "sycophantic" was justified and I stand by it. Genuine praise for someone's achievements is completely justified and should be given freely. This is not genuine praise. It appears to be a pissing contest between different people trying to find the most absurd hyperbole with which to describe the effect that _why had on them, the Ruby community, the programming world and the entire universe and all matter contained within it.