# Whyday

> Every August 19, Rubyists make something purely for the joy of it, in honor of _why.

- 2010: around 2010, the first Whyday

**Whyday** is the Ruby community's homemade holiday, celebrated every **August 19**, on which people set aside their usual rules and make something for the pure joy of it.

The date is not an accident. It marks the anniversary of the day in 2009 when the artist-programmer [_why the lucky stiff](https://chunkybacon.dev/people/why-the-lucky-stiff.md) quietly stepped away from the internet and took most of his work with him. Whyday was proposed by **Glenn Vanderburg** in 2010, on the first anniversary, as a way to honor not the exit but the spirit: the freedom, whimsy, and creativity that _why brought to Ruby. As the manifesto puts it, what he really gave the community "was a spirit of freedom, whimsy, and creativity."

The one instruction is: **make something**. Put your best practices in a drawer for a day. Release something unfinished. See how far you can push a weird corner of Ruby, or pick a tight constraint (say, 4 kilobytes of source code) and see what you can build inside it, or finally try the idea you have been calling too silly to attempt. You are also welcome to spend the day tending the software _why left behind, or teaching a kid to program, which was close to his heart.

It is a fitting tribute to a person whose whole message was that making things, imperfect and playful and just for fun, is its own reward.

*Related:* [_why the lucky stiff](https://chunkybacon.dev/people/why-the-lucky-stiff.md) · [Chunky bacon](https://chunkybacon.dev/glossary/chunky-bacon.md)

## Sources
- Whyday (whyday.org), the day's canonical home, August 19, the "make something" call and suggestions: https://www.whyday.org/
- WhyDay: Today, August 19th (Global Nerdy, 2010), the August 19 date, its link to _why leaving on Aug 19 2009, and the activity suggestions: https://www.globalnerdy.com/2010/08/19/whyday-today-august-19th/
- Whyday's tenth anniversary (Global Nerdy, 2020), Glenn Vanderburg proposing it in 2010 and the "freedom, whimsy, and creativity" manifesto line: https://www.globalnerdy.com/2020/08/16/whydays-tenth-anniversary-is-wednesday/

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Source: https://chunkybacon.dev/stories/whyday/
License: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)