downvote freely (but then don't laugh when watching Office Space).

If you have enough life experience, or read enough of Matt Groening, worst case watch enough Office movies/series, then you could suspect that bosses can be manipulative sociopaths, who do not deserve any professional courtesy.

BTW: most bosses don't fire f2f (Office Space), but with an indirection, through Human Resources Services (or hire scumbags, likeUp in the Air) [and then good luck, with your file].

I guess Steve had a reason to do this, and I respect him for having the guts to stand up in such a public way against dirty careerist office background politics, management decision support and calendaring theory.

Maybe this case doesn't fit, I have no clue (in my experience, it can be the "right thing to do" in large organisations detached from true ethics). But if Steve felt it this way, then it was this way (see Schopenhauer's most influential work, The World as Will and Representation)

Doing something for someone even though you believe that they do not deserve it is part of being a better person.

Try to explain the meaning of your sentence to a manipulative sociopath.

What's "calendaring theory" ?

How do you know he didn't tell his boss before the conference and just announce his resignation publicly during his talk?

I'm trying to put myself in his boss's shoes. I think I would only be upset if I took it personally.

I think the fact that he did it at a conference made it personal. See the other post that is a peer of yours on this thread.

Basically Steve Yegge said that his boss doesn't deserve the respect to know this ahead of time. In fact its quite possible that 1000 people will know this before his boss does, including his boss's boss.

In many regards the only person this was disrespectful to was his boss -- and that makes it personal when you single out someone in this manner.