History

_why the Lucky Stiff

The programmer who built some of Ruby's most beautiful tools, wrote the most beloved programming book in the language's history, and then deleted everything.

The cartoon foxes

Who Was _why?

_why the lucky stiff (pronounced simply "why") was a programmer, writer, musician, and artist active in the Ruby community from approximately 2003 to 2009. He operated under a pseudonym and protected his real identity carefully. His fame was entirely community-earned. In a field where recognition flows from large-scale engineering, _why became beloved for something rarer: he made programming feel like art.

The Work

2003
Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby
First published online. Unique combination of Ruby tutorial, comic strip, and surrealist fiction. Reprinted by Apress in 2005.
2004
Camping & Hpricot
Camping: 4KB micro web framework predating Sinatra. Hpricot: HTML parser with jQuery-like syntax. Both became community standards.
2005
Best Software Writing I
Chapter 3 selected by Joel Spolsky for Apress anthology. Recognition of the guide as genuine literature, not documentation.
2007
Shoes GUI Framework
Cross-platform Ruby GUI toolkit. Write desktop apps that look like Ruby, not Java. Influenced a generation of developers.
2009
The Disappearance: August 19th
Deleted everything without warning. GitHub, Twitter, blogs, projects. The Ruby community still calls it The Disappearance.
2010+
Whyday begins
Annual observance every August 19th. Programmers build and release creative projects in his spirit.

Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby

The guide, preserved at this domain, is the work most people know him for. Chapter 3 was selected for The Best Software Writing I (Apress, 2005). Cited by Martin Fowler, linked from Apache documentation, referenced by O'Reilly. The most emotionally distinctive programming book ever written in any language.

Shoes, Camping, Hpricot, Dwemthy's Array

Shoes: cross-platform GUI toolkit. Camping: micro web framework in 4KB. Hpricot: HTML parser. Dwemthy's Array: metaprogramming dungeon game. Each one technically serious and distinctively playful. All archived at whymirror on GitHub.

The Writing Style

_why's prose scores near-zero on every AI detector in our independent accuracy benchmark: burstiness CV of 0.94 (AI average: 0.31), zero formulaic transition phrases, type-token ratio of 0.74 (AI average: 0.57). His work is the extreme positive case of human writing. See the detector analysis →

"When you don't create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. Your tastes only narrow and rarely grow. So create."

The Disappearance

On August 19th, 2009, _why deleted everything, GitHub, Twitter, Rubyforge, personal websites, blogs, within hours, without warning or explanation. Community members archived what could be archived. The whymirror organization was created for this purpose.

The Legacy

The annual Whyday observance, every August 19th, began in 2010. The Poignant Guide is preserved in full at its original domain. He demonstrated that programming culture is worth taking seriously as culture. That a programming book could be literature. These ideas are now commonplace; in 2009, they were not.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is _why the lucky stiff?

A pseudonymous programmer active in Ruby from ~2003 to 2009. Created Why's Poignant Guide, Shoes, Camping, Hpricot, and dozens of other projects. Notable for combining deep technical skill with genuine artistic sensibility.

What happened to _why?

On August 19th, 2009, he deleted his entire online presence without explanation. Never returned to the Ruby community. The date is observed annually as Whyday.

Where can I read Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby?

Right here at its original domain. Start at the table of contents. CC BY-SA 2.5: free to read and share.

Further Reading