Adafruit is maybe an all time amazing success story built on giving more of a shit than anyone else. There is a direct through line from reading MAKE in high school through programming the 8 LED POV thing through the rest of my career. Limor doesn't answer a forum question on a Sunday morning in like 2008 and I don't make my mortgage payment this month and my son gets store brand formula. I wish you every success professionally and in this new chapter with your tiny miracle, and I hope for an amicable resolution to this whole Sparkfun thing.
Weird that your STT doesn't handle capitals, but that's a good excuse. Sounds like you're having a challenging day, I hope my snarky joke wasn't too annoying.
As someone who hung out on IRC way back in the 1990s (and internet-knew Limor from Adafruit back before her handle was Ladyada) I associate this writing style with the culture of a lot of the hacker-related IRC channels I used to hang out in back then.
Some of the same people from that era did in fact turn out to be tech founders and maybe that's how it got carried over into the Twitter-verse, but it predates that.
Corroborating. It goes way back to the early 90s IRC and MUD cultures, from which many of us sprung. Limor came to the scene a bit later, but the culture was well-established.
Most of us would code shift when writing in other milieux, some weaned ourselves off the habit when our work started interfacing with nonreceptive readers, and a few retained the affectation to make a statement (or an anti-statement!).
It's amusing to see the style resurface in a new generation though. I guess it's no more odd than when 20 year olds unknowingly emulate the dress and mannerisms from when their parents were young. We just smile and recall the age when we thought we were being different too. :)
Not much later, I remember her hanging out in #hack in the '92-93 timeframe (first as lem0n then later as ladyada).
She was like the "kid" of the channel regulars (which is an extremely relative designation because there were a lot of teenagers just a couple years older than her).
I also remember her going to one of the 2600 meetings at the CambridgeSide Galleria that I went to with morgen and wil wheaton that must have been either in 1993 or very early 1994 (it was definitely prior to the first HOPE in 94). IIRC Limor was being chaperoned by RogueAgent and theora/Sarah Gordon.
Sounds right. I was only an occasional attendee at the Galleria, but the timeline makes sense.
H.O.P.E. brings back memories though -- I was very uncertain that that Poland Springs jug would contain the explosives taped to the Clipper chip. I remember wishing I was sitting several rows further back for that moment. :)
It goes back before that. There were well known Usenet folks who adhered to the style. The 1970s-and-earlier Arpanet was before my time, but I'm sure it existed then too ;).
You know, I was trying to remember if anyone from Usenet did similarly, but I couldn't think of anyone.
I was a bit post-Great Renaming into well post-Eternal September. And we may have followed different groups.
The style arises spontaneously in isolated individuals and groups of course (at least since e. e. cummings!), but it was pervasive-to-universal on IRC and MUDs.
I do wonder how it trickled into there though. The most boring answer is probably the correct one. it was slightly easier to type and kids are naturally flexible.
Your other posts have capital letters for technical abbreviations and "Sparkfun", but not for "I" and the first letter of sentences.
Sorry, from a bystander this looks like a straight-up lie, and why lie about such a small thing? It brings into question the truth of your other statements. Just say you like the style if that's the truth.
some are already words/abbreivations that are in my word list and some are me typing over later when i can, and some is a cut/paste if limor has something for me to add or does an edit as she looks at things. you can see my writings on the adafruit blog have caps, commenting on forums or hackersnews quickly, there will be some things someone does not like. we were at the doc with our 2 month old during this ... https://x.com/ptorrone/status/2011509017814659095
Let me inform you (and anyone else for that matter) that one observer has observed 2 samples of writing today, yours and his, and has formed 2 impressions of the writers, and that yours is not the more favorable. Do with this information what you will.
It is clearly a deliberate choice to send the signal of conforming to a particular type of non-conformance. It’s a costly signal because most people will see it as having the emotional maturity of a child, it signals to others that given their social status they can afford that self imposed handicap.
years and years and years of ptorrone's posts aren't capitalized, though. it's not like they suddenly decided today, for the purposes of this post, to change their writing style.
in any case, i prefer to decide whether someone has the "emotional maturity of a child" based on what they say, not whether they push their shift key.
