why the lucky stiff was the persona of an anonymous and prolific writer, cartoonist, musician, artist, and computer programmer.(wikipedia) He was one of the key figures in the Ruby community and helped to build what the Ruby community is today. He gave the Ruby community the spirit of freedom, whimsy and most notably creativity. 

On August 19, 2009 he withdrew from the online community. He shut down all his online presence including his Github, Twitter Accounts, the sites he maintained, etc. Since then his work has been collected at the whymirror on Github. 

The Ruby community wishes him well and celebrates Whyday today to remember Why's contributions to the community and culture.

The Ruby hackers here at Coworking-space Gasmotorenfabrik join the celebration. So put away your best practices and create something wonderful! Head over to the whyday page to get some ideas:  Try that wild idea you've been sitting on because it's too crazy, teach programming to a child, see how far you can push some weird corner of ruby, ...

Happy whyday!

One of why's talks: ART && CODE Symposium: Hackety Hack, why the lucky stiff from STUDIO for Creative Inquiry on Vimeo.