Why the lucky stiff
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- The correct title of this article is why the lucky stiff. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.
why the lucky stiff (often known simply as why or _why) is the persona of a writer, cartoonist, musician, artist, and computer programmer known for his work with the Ruby programming language.
why's best known opus is Why's (poignant) Guide to Ruby, an "online Ruby book for beginning coders which reads like an illustrated novel." Paul Adams of Webmonkey describes its eclectic style as resembling a "collaboration between Stan Lem and Ed Lear."
why is the author of Syck, a YAML library for C, Ruby, and several other languages. Syck has been a part of standard Ruby libraries since Ruby version 1.8.0.
He is also the principal author of Hobix, a YAML-based weblog application written in Ruby; the RedCloth library, which implements the Textile markup language; and MouseHole, a personal web proxy that can rewrite the web as you view it. Another one of his creations is Camping, an ActiveRecord-based Ruby microframework that is less than 4 kilobytes in size. (A longer list of why's open source Ruby projects can be found at http://code.whytheluckystiff.net/.)
Many new Ruby enthusiasts have no doubt seen the interactive Ruby learning tool sired by why, available at http://tryruby.hobix.com/. why broke the mold when it came to interactive tutorials, creating an interesting and technologically exciting tool to teach.
Besides writing, drawing, and programming, why tours with his band The Thirsty Cups, presenting programming-related multimedia shows at conferences like OSCON, RubyConf, and RailsConf.
why also runs RedHanded, a weblog dedicated to Ruby culture.
This wikipedia page can be seen in a 'corrected' form if you browse the web through why's proxy mousehole, using why's personal corrections to the web script.
[edit] why's Blogs
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