Why the lucky stiff

why the lucky stiff
_why at RailsConf Europe
Born	Jonathan Gillette
Disappeared	19 August 2009
Other names	why, _why, Jonathan Gillette
Occupation	Ruby programmer, author, musician
Known for	Why's (poignant) Guide to Ruby, Camping

Jonathan Gillette, known by the pseudonym why the lucky stiff (often abbreviated as _why), is a writer, cartoonist, artist, and programmer notable for his work with the Ruby programming language. Annie Lowrey described him as "one of the most unusual, and beloved, computer programmers" in the world. Along with Yukihiro Matsumoto and David Heinemeier Hansson, he was seen as one of the key figures in the Ruby community.

_why made a presentation enigmatically 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. It explored how to teach programming and make the subject more appealing to adolescents. _why gave a presentation and performed with his band, the Thirsty Cups, at RailsConf in 2006.

On 19 August 2009, why's accounts on Twitter and GitHub and his personally maintained websites went offline. Shortly before he disappeared, why the lucky stiff tweeted, "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."

_why's colleagues have assembled collections of his writings and projects.

On 5 January 2013, _why's site was back online, although, as of October 2013, it was only serving a blank page. In March 2014, the site re-launched as the personal blog of an anonymous individual from Australia with no apparent connection to _why.

His best known work is Why's (poignant) Guide to Ruby, which "teaches Ruby with stories." Paul Adams of Webmonkey describes its eclectic style as resembling a "collaboration between Stan Lem and Ed Lear". Chapter three was published in The Best Software Writing I: Selected and Introduced by Joel Spolsky.