Tragedious

I only know the word tragedious because it is one of a handful of words in the English language that contains all five vowels and they are in alphabetical order. Tragediously would be one that uses the sometimes Y. The meaning of tragedious is to be like a tragedy. What I am about to write about is a tragedious waste.

Creating Passionate Users is one of the best blogs I've ever had the pleasure of reading. When it was actively written I used to devour each post. They're still up there and I recommend reading all of it.

Kathy Sierra, the author of CPU, writes with a distinctive style and she shares a unique perspective to the software developing community, and the world. Take this essay about performance reviews. Read it. Amazing isn't it? It's a perspective that is against the grain with a nice visual graphic that illustrates her point. When I think about the point of the essay, which is to encourage people to develop their strengths instead of focusing on their so called opportunities. That's smart, it's also contrary to what most of the experts over in HR and management will tell you. But it's something that I agree with--then again I try to manage my teams to their strengths and not against their weaknesses.

This is just one of many of her essays. It's par for the course. CPU is filled with excellent essays like the one I shared. This is one that I randomly pulled. I'm going to read it now. Wow! How about that, it is excellent! I couldn't agree more with what she had to say. Schools suck. Ok, another essay expressing my own opinion on the matter is in the works. Suffice it to say that I strongly agree with the points made in the essay.

So, there's a blog with awesome essays. There was a time when these essays came on a regular basis. Every week you could almost count on a great read. Freely available. Kathy Sierra seemed to spin gold with her essays.

So, how is this Tragedious? Kathy doesn't share her essays anymore because some creeps thought it would be cute to post some inappropriate and threatening comments about her on the internet and she felt threatened. How horrible is that? I've never met Kathy, but I feel like she's one of the people with whom I could enjoy wonderful conversations. Everyone I know who read CPU feels the same way.
It pains me to think that she felt fearful for her safety because a few people. I wish there were some way I could help her, but I know of nothing. I really miss her essays. It's tragic because, as far as I know, she's a very generous person. I've never heard anyone say anything ill of her. Why would someone want to hurt a person like this?
It is a horrible waste.