Jonathan Gillette, better known as why the lucky stiff (often abbreviated to Why or _why), was until 2009 a prolific writer, cartoonist, artist, and computer programmer notable for his work with the Ruby programming language. He was known as "one of the most unusual, and beloved, computer programmers" in the world before he abruptly disappeared from public view. Along with Yukihiro Matsumoto and David Heinemeier Hansson, he was seen as a key figure in the Ruby community.
_why was the keynote speaker at RailsConf in 2006. He also had a speaking session titled "A Starry Afternoon, a Sinking Symphony, and the Polo Champ Who Gave It All Up for No Reason Whatsoever" at the 2005 O'Reilly Open Source Convention held in Portland, Oregon. It explored how to teach programming and make it more appealing to adolescents.
On 19 August 2009, his online presence was drastically truncated; his accounts on Twitter and GitHub were shut down, along with many of his personally maintained sites. His projects have since been collected and centralized on the whymirror GitHub account.
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Famous quotes containing the words lucky and/or stiff:
“What makes the United States government, on the whole, more tolerable—I mean for us lucky white men—is the fact that there is so much less of government with us.... But in Canada you are reminded of the government every day. It parades itself before you. It is not content to be the servant, but will be the master; and every day it goes out to the Plains of Abraham or to the Champs de Mars and exhibits itself and toots.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“These emblems of twilight have seen at length,
And the man red-faced and tall seen, leaning
In the day of his strength
Not as a pine, but the stiff form
Against the west pillar....”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)