On a rainy, blustery weekend in March of 2009, the Carnegie Mellon School of Art hosted the art&&code symposium. It was a low-key event, with maybe one or two hundred in attendance. It gathered together artists, coders, hackers, students and teachers alike. We came to talk about programming environments like Processing, Scratch, openFrameworks, and vvvv, and how they can be used to make art, and more importantly, how these tools can educate and inspire an interest in programming for young people.

Of all of the presenters, there was one who perfectly captured the spirit of it all. His name was why. He wore a blue flower on his lapel, and carried an autoharp around with him. He was and remains a hero and source of inspiration for me, and I was lucky enough to be his student (at least for a few hours).

“Drawing Cats with Hackety Hack” was the name of his session. As soon as everyone took their seats, why started in with a dramatic chord on his autoharp. On instinct, I opened up TapeDeck and pressed record.

It was a few months later, in August, that why made his sudden disappearance from the Internet.why existed mostly as an online persona, and made very few personal appearances. This was one of his last. I had completely forgotten that I recorded the lecture, until I stumbled across the files a few weeks back.

The audio quality isn’t great—it’s my computer’s internal mic, facing the wrong way, no less. There’s a good half hour I missed because my laptop ran out of battery. You can hear the strained whirring of my computer fans, along with other strange computer noises.

Yet, these recordings are very special to me, and I thought I might share them with everyone else. Here are the interesting bits with why talking and singing that I could salvage from my footage.

1. Introduction and The Jennings Kids Are Here

“Drawing Cats with Hackety Hack” is exactly what this class is about. why introduces the kinds of cats we’re about to draw together (recording starts at number 3, though). Special guest appearance by Golan Levin, who organized the conference.

2. Hopes of Hackety Hack and the Ridiculousness of Web Programming

On HTML, CSS, & Javascript: “You’re a smart kid, but three languages? Are you kidding me? Are you seriously kidding me? That’s ridiculous, I can’t accept that… I mean, three languages that are inexplicably combined. Where does HTML begin and Javascript end?”

3. The Keybohohohoard Should Not Be Ignohohohored

why breaks out into song as he reminds us of the utility of the keyboard in programming interfaces for teaching kids.

4. Fake Viruses

Everybody’s made a fake virus program—even why! Perhaps this should be part of a young programmer’s rites of passage.

5. I Don’t Really Care if it Crashed, I Just Want You to Feel Smart

A musical conclusion to the class. No matter what happened with programming, it was alright because we were having fun and able to laugh about it.

why’s mission with Hackety Hack, and indeed in much of his work, was to make programming more about whimsey than frustration, more about feeling smart than feeling dumb. That day remains one of my most cherished memories, and I submit these with the utmost respect and gratitude towhy. Wherever you are, I wish you all the best. We all still have a lot to learn from you.

If you haven’t already, you should read his 2003 essay “The Little Coder’s Predicament”. His lecture from art&&code is also worth a watch.