Every time I write a multi-line block in ruby:

beatles.sort{|b| b.coolness}.reverse.each do |moptop|
  moptop.kick_the_bucket!
end

…I remember Why the Lucky Stiff, the long lost ruby hacker also known as _why, who described the syntax |moptop| as representing a variable skidding down a sliding board into the next iteration.  moptop says, "Here I come, local scope, I'm bringing stuff to you!"  It's a great image, a refreshing alternative to the dry, drab mental framework in which we sometimes code.  It requires only a tiny step out of context – seeing the code as shapes on the plane of the screen, having graphical form as well as syntactical meaning.  It also requires the larger step that _why was always taking, and bringing everyone along with him – into the playground.

But it's not even fair to say that he lept from coding to joy; they were of a piece. Humor, music, creative writing, art, philosophy, programming – they seemed to be aspects of all his work, all the time.  I'm a huge fan of these kinds of "non-programmery" programmers, folks whose vision and personality evoke the Artist archetype in a genre often considered orthogonal to art. Some of us wage a propaganda campaign, always trying to convince our artistic, non-techie friends that software development is a fun and creative trade.  Others, like _why, don't have to propagandize at all, because their very lives express a seamless mash-up of creative domains.

Why the Lucky Stuff committed digital suicide over a year ago now.  He removed not only his personal (albeit anonymous) accounts, but also deleted all the repositories for all the open source projects he'd created.  There were many projects, and the projects had many users depending on them.  Destroyed, all at once, with no warning, no message whatsoever.  Was he the digital Andy Kaufman, as someone described him in a blog comment.  Was he becoming, self-consciously or not, the internet's Jeff Mangum? John Resig, the creator of jQuery, casts _why's work as a sand mandala.  I don't have any answers to any of that, and I don't know why talented and inspiring people sometimes decide to renounce the world that has embraced them. But it was fascinating to look back on the reaction to _why's disappearance, which caused shock, anger, resignation, resentment, laughter. I thought his quirky brand of absurdist, post-modern humor would appeal to only a small fraction of us in the Ruby community, but apparently he left a huge impression in his wake. He's even got a holiday.

To paraphrase one of my favorite comments on one of the many threads regarding the disappearance: "I'm not surprised at all. Not so long ago, the internet was an alternative lifestyle." Of course, he might not have made his Last Artistic Statement by disappearing along with his work.  I like to think of it that way, that as a creative agent he simply moved on, hopped on some sliding board and skid.  "Here I come, non-internet, I'm bringing stuff to you!" But who knows, he was such a smart guy with a track record of secrecy, he might've been swallowed up by some tight-lipped, vaguely sinister organization.  Like the intelligence agency for some nefarious nation state.  Or Microsoft.