Zed Shaw | |
|---|---|
 Shaw in Montreal, 2008 | |
| Occupation | Software developer |
Zed A. Shaw is a software developer best known for creating the Learn Code the Hard Way series of programming tutorials, as well as for creating the Mongrel web server for Ruby web applications. [1] He is also well known for his polemical views on programming languages and communities.
Shaw authored the Mongrel web server for Ruby web applications. [2] Mongrel was the first web server used by Twitter, and inspired Node.js, according to its creator Ryan Dahl. [3] Mongrel2 is the language-agnostic successor to Mongrel.
He has also written a Python mail server called Lamson, [4] on which the mailing list site LibreList is built.
Shaw is the author of learncodethehardway.org, which offers to teach users Python, Ruby, C, Regex, and SQL. [5]
Shaw has been outspoken in his criticism of certain programming language and technical communities.
His most famous and well-covered piece was the article "Rails is a Ghetto" [6] [7] which has since been removed from his site. [8]
"There is a high probability that Python 3 is such a failure it will kill Python." - Zed Shaw
Shaw has a long-standing rant opposing Python 3, where he finds the new string type difficult to use, and as a result believes it should not be adopted. Nonetheless, in February 2017 he published a first draft of Learn Python 3 The Hard Way. [9] [ better source needed ]
He stated in November 2016 that "Python 3 is not Turing complete" due to claims from Python project developers that Python 2 code cannot be made to run in the Python 3 VM. [10] This statement has drawn a lot of criticism. [11]
Shaw has spoken about the amounts of vague and misleading information that is pervasive on the startup and entrepreneur culture, particularly concerning self-proclaimed startup advisors or entrepreneurship "gurus", having demonstrated publicly how some notable figures in the industry appear to speak and provide advice from a background of success that they never actually attained. [12]
Shaw is also behind an initiative entitled "Programming, Motherfucker", whose manifesto claims that programmers are "tired of being told we're socially awkward idiots who need to be manipulated to work in a Forced Pair Programming chain gang." [13]
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