Don't remember _why doing any Rails development -- he was really key in Ruby land, but did his own (super-minimal) web thing called Camping. Anything I'm forgetting that he did with/for Rails?

his 'artsyness' was the main reason I avoided learning Ruby for years-- wrongly thinking people who code in Ruby speak like him.

I know this is a possibly unpopular opinion but I don't think one should glorify a sophomoric book as a key Ruby book-- there are others that deserve that title, PickAxe is close, but I'd have liked a book like Whittaker's "C#, Player Guide" for Ruby.

Perhaps Ruby isn't for you then?

Matz's intent was and has been to bring joy and delight to developers, with the odd combination of PERL, LISP, and Smalltalk as his inspirations. Joy and delight don't necessarily equate with "most practical". But joy and delight are wonderful and healthful qualities to cultivate for a good life!

_why embodied much of the spirit of the (at least earlier) Ruby community. We were software developer immigrants, many coming from prescriptive verbose technologies (I'm looking at you, Java!). We were eager for novel ways of expressing our ideas. Ruby's metaprogramming capabilities are, as far as I know, still all but unmatched beyond perhaps Smalltalk itself (and IO, which AFAIK no one uses seriously). _why's playfulness captured all of this in elegant and sometimes bizarre but often artistic expressions in his projects and code.

I will never regret or apologize for the Ruby community's appreciation for the Poignant Guide.

And, _why, wherever you are and whoever you are, thanks.

Typical deficit in reading comprehension is the hallmark of the mediocre mind.

> Typical deficit in reading comprehension is the hallmark of the mediocre mind.

Are you insulting the person who responded to your comment?

only if he's multi accounting

Interpretation depends on the reader. Was I insulting anyone or was I making a general statement? It can go both ways. If you read my original comment, I expressed dis-preference for why_'s book, which is responsible for my not learning Ruby for a long long time. People like these take something good and make a joke out of it. My original comment points to this--not at all about Matz and Ruby--both of which I like. Yet, the person responding to my comment, without reading my comment carefully or understanding it, twisted my comment into saying 'perhaps you don't like Ruby' by saying the passive aggressive 'Ruby is not for you' which is a tacit insult (meaning, I am too stupid to get it). Do you see now how it escalated because the other person condescended?

Read his comment very carefully and you will see that I have merely returned the favor :)

I'm sorry you feel that way.

Sure, Ruby is for anyone who wants to use it.

Once again, let me spell it for you. I haev no problem with Ruby. I just did not like why_'s bullshit. Make sense to you now? I respect Matz and his achievements.

I absolutely loved _why's guide, not the least because it made certain very serious, over the top professional people very uncomfortable. Bullshit in the guise of Very Serious Business Software Engineering is still bullshit, but if you present something like it's a big joke to you, and it still shines, there probably is something to it. I feel a lot of present-day IT wouldn't pass that test.

Well, my opinion is, he took something elegant and sublime and dressed it up in bullshit; there's nothing wrong with being playful and fun--as I mentioned earlier, Whittaker's "C#, Player's Guide" is the ONLY programming book that presented serious stuff in a fun way without clowning.

There was not really a place to put it into the rails doc. But I put a comic strip as a tribute to _why into a related blog post: https://cult.honeypot.io/reads/why-ruby-on-rails-is-not-dead...