“When you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. Your tastes only narrow and exclude people, so create.” ~_Why the Lucky Stiff
We covered Why the Lucky Still this past week during our developer of the day. Why is notorious in the Ruby community. He was a brilliant developer and prolific contributor in the early days, then about three years ago, he commit digital suicide and completely erased his presence on-line. Most of his stuff still exists in various locations on the internet and he has achieved legend status. His writing style is quirky to say the least and full of little scrawled cartoons. He paints a picture of Ruby as being something other than the run-of-mill language. This is the message many of the languages originators and most active practitioners communicate.
At the end of last week we covered Yukihiro Matsumoto aka Matz. Matz says he created Ruby to make programmers happy, and designed it to be expressive. He is a famously nice guy, so much so that the Ruby community has adopted the saying MINSWAN, or: Matz Is Nice So We Are Nice.
I can’t only conclude that I am being initiated into a cult. It is the best kind of cult—one composed of smart creators who are nice.
We’ve spent heaps of time on Ruby this past week and most of it has been frustrating, but kind of fun. It has been frustrating because I am rewiring my brain. It is a totally different way of thinking and the best way I can describe it is by comparing it to learning a foreign language. I remember days when I was totally immersed in spanish when my brain hurt. Slowly though, almost without me noticing at first, my brain reorganized itself. It was more than a process of learning a bunch of facts about vocabulary and grammar, it changed me.
During our Feeling Friday (and hour at the end of the day on Friday when we sit in a circle and talk about how we were feeling about the week) many members of my class described how they were now dreaming in Ruby. This is a sign that the brain is being changed, our though processes are being effected in ways we probably can’t begin to comprehend after only two weeks.
Ruby is a way of thinking, a way of working, and a way of being. Soon we all be card-carrying cult members. I look forward to it.
