Apparently he tweeted this yesterday (quoted from a retweet): "programming is rather thankless. u see your works become replaced by superior ones in a year. unable to run at all in a few more."
But _why's contributions are largely irreplaceable. Yeah, software evolves and individual projects might be supplanted by others, but his contributions go way beyond simply writing functioning code.
I'm not in the ruby world, so perhaps that's why his contributions have largely been outside my sphere and there may be a great deal I'm unaware of. That said, when someone goes and removes their repositories and whatever other traces of their workproduct they have access to (as is their right), it might make people reluctant to use their products in the future (assuming they return).
_why has never really made "products" -- in fact, as far as I know, he's never made money from any of the stuff he shared online. (Sales of physical copies of the Poignant Guide may be the one exception to this, but IIRC, he priced it exactly at his cost in order to insure the widest possible distribution.)
Apparently he tweeted this yesterday: "programming is rather thankless. u see your works become replaced by superior ones in a year. unable to run at all in a few more."
ironically he wrote "you" on twitter, and you wrote "u" on hn.
But _why's contributions are largely irreplaceable. Yeah, software evolves and individual projects might be supplanted by others, but his contributions go way beyond simply writing functioning code.