_why's RailsConf 2006 Keynote
RailsConf 2006: why the lucky stiff and the Thirsty Cups (Joey deVilla, firsthand account, 2006)
The keynote that was part code, part comedy, and part live band. Probably the most _why thing ever to happen on a conference stage.
At RailsConf 2006 in Chicago, the artist and programmer known as _why the lucky stiff gave a keynote that nobody in the room had a category for. It was part live music with a full band, part stand-up comedy, part Flash animation, and part actual Ruby. People still bring it up as one of the most gloriously unclassifiable things ever to happen on a tech conference stage.
_why did not stand at a podium with slides full of bullet points. He performed. His band, The Thirsty Cups, played Ruby-themed musical numbers whose lyrics wove in things like unit tests and nods to the people in the room, between surreal little stories and animations. One attendee described the sound as something like “Ween-meets-Danielson” and captured a song excerpt titled “Am I a Programmer Yet?” The show drifted through absurd territory: koalas, a sticky substance called “obidience lacquer,” sentient puddings writing viruses, and a Flash cartoon comparing how Java and Ruby handle exceptions. As the same attendee put it, “you’d never see this kind of thing at JavaOne.”
Why does a comedy-music-code cabaret get remembered as a landmark? Because it was the clearest live proof of what _why kept arguing everywhere else: that programming could be joyful, silly, and human, not just serious. This is the same spirit that gave the community its favorite nonsense catchphrase, Chunky bacon. A recording of the performance survives, archived by fans as “why the lucky stiff and the Thirsty Cups” at RailsConf Chicago and dated June 23, 2006.
As with everything _why, what matters here is the work and the moment. He chose to be known only by that name.
Related: _why the lucky stiff · Chunky bacon · "Wat" (Gary Bernhardt, 2012)
Sources
Sources
- RailsConf 2006: why the lucky stiff and the Thirsty Cups (Joey deVilla, firsthand attendee account, 2006): https://www.joeydevilla.com/2006/06/30/railsconf-2006-why-the-lucky-stiff-and-the-thirsty-cups/
- why the lucky stiff and the Thirsty Cups, RailsConf Chicago (Internet Archive recording, dated 2006-06-23): https://archive.org/details/whytheluckystiff2006-06-23.railsconf_chicago