Psh. Whatever!

you are an amazing writer. IMHO

Thank you for this piece and please continue to write about whatever takes your fancy, technical or otherwise. Even when I make snarky remarks about your stuff (on reddit) I take care to refer to you as Mr.Yegge because you deserve the greatest respect, for your writing as much as for your rationality. As Feynman's Arline would have said, "Why should you care what other people think ?" Especially when you have more to offer than most of them. Cheers.

I really never understood why people blog about their own lives. It's ok to blog about how things like computers and other technology affect your life and what your personal opinion on such things is, and that's why I like this blog a lot.

But frankly,I find reading about where someone else had lunch and where he met his friends and how many arguments he had during the day downright pointless. I try to blog about things that happen in the world, and what those things mean to me.

When I was prancing about Asia for the last couple months, I could have written about something new almost every day. I was simply bombarded with things that I found funny or interesting or that I simply have never thought of before.

Now, I'm back home, settling into life for a while doing thing people my age do, find a job go to school etc. There really isn't too much to write about anymore, because there is simply nothing new to learn from. Looking back I wish I had put my thoughts down, if not to help remember what I learned, then simply to have a laugh at myself.

I have always thoroughly enjoyed your web log, even though I sometimes have no idea what in the world your talking about (try as I might to find out). Why? because your smart, funny, and have an experiance unique to mine.

I encourage you to write for yourself, and simply let us learn and share from your experiance, and as such become wiser.

My condolences, Mr. Yegge.

-Sumana

Thanks for living out loud. The world needs more of that. Don't let the haters get ya down. And thanks for introducing us to Dave. I want to be like him. Except for the dissolving and being tortured.

Even computer nerds need some perspective on real life once in a while.

We need to be periodically reminded that we won't be here forever, and we need to make the best of life with the ones we love.

Such a perspective is helpful for people considering whether to take that new high-paying job that will require them to commute 75 miles and work 12-hour days instead of taking the lesser-paying job two blocks away with normal hours so they can spend time with their family.

Sweet Jesus, I was close to tears reading that. That was beautiful.

Hey there, thx for all your essays and for this blog. I've got a brother, 18 months younger than me. Thanksfully he's healthy. Since the day he's born he has been the most important "thing" in my life. 4.000 (four thousands) emails exchanged since we both have the Internet (as a nerd I've got all my mails archived, from the very first one I send), hardly a day without an email or a phone call exchanged. I can't accept the fact that one day one of us will be gone: can't accept it for the one that will stay. I understand you miss him.

Back into gear: looking forward to read on, say, why Java 1.5 annotations will allow more Eiffellesque Javaization than Nice or something ;)

Also don't listen to the nay-sayers: nobody's forced to read the occasional "off-topic" blog.

:)

Thanks for adding a bit of perspective to a less-than-perfect day.

While I came to know your blog via one of the infamous technical rants, I would read your blog if you never posted another technical rant ever. I am sorry for your loss. Time to contact my brother and tell him I love him...

To be honest I probably would never have seen your blog before if it wasn't for digg and your the only regular blog I read.

Your brother Dave sounds like a heck of a guy... Sounds like he and his life helped make you the person and the writer you are, so it's not for nothing.

I actually spreddit this story halfway through reading it (title: "..no bowel movement is ever inspected as scrupulously as articles posted to reddit", so you know how far I'd gotten) After I finished reading I deleted my submission. Looks like I wasn't the only one.

I don't see how reading stories on reddit is different from reading them in a feed reader, though. Either way people are going to be reading it the day after you wrote it. Celebrity's like that. But they will still think about it when the time is right for them.

Thanks for the wonderful blog. In few years you will be a Genius.

Thank you.

Brought tears to my eyes.

I love reading your technical essays and it's sobering to read posts like this one: reminds us that we're all human and we're all only here for a brief while.

Keep writing.
Please.

-- Barry.

Absolutely fantastic post! Straight from the heart. I'm a fan of how you write more than what you write, so I'll enjoy whatever you post about. You're like BBC world, there is a certain panache about your style - I am not looking for National Geo. or Discovery here

My doctor says I might have bronchitis. What the hell do they teach med school students, anyway?

Are you hinting at the possibility that you might have cancer too?

- YD

I think it was a great gesture and sentiment for someone you obviously loved a lot. My big brother was killed in a car crash when I was fourteen, and mom passed from a brain tumor about a year later. To this day I think the grief from my brother was the catalyst that started it all. Death gives you a whole different world view, and in my case it came a lot earlier than my friends who mostly concerned with getting to third base with some girl. Mortality is a strange concept, and even more so when you're slapped in the face with just how quick life can come and go. I'm always grateful for the great times I had, but wish to hell that they were still around to see the man I've become, and the life that it surely lacking with their absence. To your brother, mine, and all the others out there. Keep writing about what you want.

been there... it's been 14 years for me...

you have to thing though... what would it be like it he was alive, would he be proud of you if he was here?

being that kind of guy, wouldn't you want him to be proud of you?

Steve, thank you. Today my life is richer, from having seen a tiny glimpse of Dave's, and of yours.

Blessings,
Daniel Azuma
(another former Amazon SDE)

I think a blog should contain all the things you feel like writing about. Words can never convey a whole person, but maybe more words about more subjects can present a reasonable impression.

Sorry to hear about the loss of your brother, even though it was some time ago. When you lose someone you love, it never really ceases to be a factor in your thoughts and emotions. I've had friends and family and "adopted family" die over the years, and every so often I just wake up wishing I could have said one more thing to them.

Usually something nice.

Anyhow, blog on.

Funny, I originally got pointed here because of the "lisp is not an acceptable lisp" article. Today I noticed the tab was still open and hit refresh.

I'm glad I did. Chalk up another one to the "people Dave made laugh" list. Thanks.

- Matt S Trout

Please write about anything you feel like talking about, and I as many others here will gladly read it.
Nothing like a story like this to put all the religious wars of the tech world into perspective.No need to kill ourselves over Emacs vs Vi or Java vs Ruby nor anything like that.Life is just to short.

All the best to you, and Dave.

Sometimes I think we should have some kind of social networking equivalent to robots.txt. I guess a way to say hey, I think this article is better than karma whoring and armchair master-programmer-hood, so don't post it or don't allow comments.

Anyways, blogging is about the things that are important enough to write down, and only incidentally involves everyone else. If some lame comment starts to get to you just try to remember that the poster is just some tool on the internet that probably should be working anyways.

As for Dave, I could come up with a ton of cliches to which, if I knew you, you would nod your head and say "yeah, you're right" without really feeling much better. Instead, since I don't know you, especially since I don't know Dave, i'll say this. Dave seems like he was a rule unto himself. The power of his life was in refusing to fit into any description but his own. If writing about something other than programming is what fits the Steve Yegge rule, then do that. I'm sure all the internet tools will find something else to siezure over.

My older brother died from a tumor at 23 about 10 years ago... I'm now turning 23 in less than 2 weeks and you just made me realize that.

Sometime I wonder how would it be to have an older brother who could explain life to me in a way that only a brother or sister can...

Well sorry to be so "self-minded" writing about myself on your blog but your post reminded me of how he was and for that I cannot thanks you enough.

- David

PS : Sorry about my writing but english isn't my primary language.

Steve,

That article of yours almost brought me to tears as it reminded me of the cousin that Ive lost in a car accident 10+ yrs ago. But I could tell that what you went through was more overwhelming in multitude.

So OK it wasn't a technically inclined article but its interesting, no doubt about it.
I read your blog on a regular basis because I admired your intelligence and your flair for language, sometimes wishfully thinking that I can someday be half as good as you are.
And I could easily count with one finger how many bloggers I can say the same thing to.

Very sorry to hear about you and your family's loss Steve. I don't even want to think about how painful it must've been for your parents. Thanks for posting.

Well. That was an unexpected piece (about Dave). I imagine (because I've never blogged in my life) that you'll get all sorts of sympathetic (or not) repsonses to such a post. I can imagine that because I have suffered a tragedy that was also intense and left me with similar feelings. I won't recount it here, it was anyway very different from yours.

You will probably wonder why people feel a need to attach themselves to such pain (or maybe I'm projecting my own feelings too much). But regardless I can certainly understand the need to communicate them with other people - and I hope you won't think me a shallow jerk when I say that.

On a practical note, you could always run several blogs with pseudonyms - but maybe I'm missing the point?

I got so sad reading this I actually feel kind of sick. I guess that's nothing compared to what you feel.

I've never liked the idea of feeling better about your own problems by looking at somebody who has it worse than you. But things like this do give people perspective.

Last weekend I went skydiving. It wasn't nearly as scary as I expected, and I've felt different since. I can see doing it for therapeutic effect. It was a place up in Snohomish; I recommend them if you feel like trying it.

the pans never really stops does it? you just kinda get hollow and you juts keep plodding along. andit all sucks hey