
Dan Weinreb passed away - pyb
http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2012/09/07/dan-weinreb-boston-computer-geek-community-figure-dies-of-cancer/
======
gamache
A couple years ago, I passed a very pleasurable hour in front of the
Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles when the man behind me in line
noticed the database book I was reading, and struck up a conversation. Glad I
had the luck to rub elbows with one of the Lisp old school. RIP.

------
thom
Dan Weinreb was the MIT guy in 'Worse is Better':

[http://people.csail.mit.edu/gregs/ll1-discuss-archive-
html/m...](http://people.csail.mit.edu/gregs/ll1-discuss-archive-
html/msg01821.html)

<http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html>

~~~
bitdiddle
Interesting, didn't know that. I used to hack on the Symbolics and recall
using Statice a neat OO db he did.

------
nostrademons
He was a HN user too:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dlweinreb>

Will the black bar come out?

------
smanek
Dan was awesome. A few years ago, when I was an undergrad trying to raise
money for my first startup in Boston, he was a huge help. Took the time to
grab a couple meals with me and explain how things worked, introduced me to
angels, and was really insightful. He had no expectation of anything in return
- just gave freely of his time and experience.

I wish I had kept in better touch with him. He will be missed.

------
strlen
About a year and a half ago I commented on a blog post he has made (it was a
rather minor point in regards to consistency in distributed databases, I
think). Dan replied to me via email with a follow up question and we had some
correspondence about distributed systems, databases, and (naturally) Lisp. He
ended up helping me edit a rough draft of a blog post, which ended up being
very well received.

Several things struck me. First, expertise went across many disciplines of CS
(from programming languages, to hardware, to databases) and beyond. He could
have easily had fame as "Lisp guy", or "object oriented databases guy", or
"CPU design guy" but he went above and beyond.

Finally, despite his repute, not only was he approachable (as evidenced by
many stories here of folks carrying on correspondence with Dan), but he was
curious and interested in learning from others, e.g., he noticed I listed
OCaml on my LinkedIn profile and asked a question related to an article Erik
Meijer's wrote about Linq and F#.

He will be sorely missed.

------
zachbeane
The wikipedia edit doesn't cite any sources, but I've heard it from his
coworkers at ITA and from
<https://twitter.com/CommonAngels/status/244137900336361472>

Very sad to hear it. I really enjoyed hearing Dan's stories from his early
days at MIT and his renewed interest in Common Lisp in the past few years was
great.

He had a great Google Tech Talk on YouTube/Google Video a few years ago about
ITA, but sadly it was taken down for some reason.

~~~
EvanAnderson
Here's a link to a note Dan wrote about the video being marked "private", as
well as a link to some notes about the talk.

[http://lists.common-
lisp.net/pipermail/pro/2011-April/000464...](http://lists.common-
lisp.net/pipermail/pro/2011-April/000464.html)

------
cjbprime
More here: [http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2012/09/07/dan-weinreb-
boston-...](http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2012/09/07/dan-weinreb-boston-
computer-geek-community-figure-dies-of-cancer/)

------
sanj
I met Dan at a coffee meetup in Cambridge several years back. He was
considerate, erudite and unfailingly interesting and excitable.

I wish I gotten to spend more time with him.

------
metaobject
I'd _love_ to see his google tech talk. Perhaps, in memory of Dan, google can
go through the video and redact any portions they feel are not suitable for
public release. Then, repost it to YT.

Is anybody aware of a link to the video that works. After searching for a bit,
it seems that every page I visited points the video back to YT. Surely,
somebody made a copy of it somewhere???

RIP Dan.

~~~
nigori
Sounds like an idea for a petition

------
ScottBurson
A shock, to me, as I had no idea he had cancer. And very sad indeed. I didn't
know him well, but I was a Zmacs user from the early days. (I still miss Zmacs
in some ways.)

Dan was a great hacker.

------
whirlycott1
Dan was a super guy and a good friend. Incredibly smart, incredibly
experienced, well respected and wonderfully nice to be around.

It's incredibly sad and a big loss for the technology world, but let's not
forget to direct our thoughts to his wife and son that he leaves behind.

------
bitwize
I met him a couple of times at Boston Lisp meetings.

Awesome guy. Very low key. Consider me officially bummed.

------
sixQuarks
Why do so many great people pass away so young, and evil people like Dick
Cheney live till old age even though they have 100 heart attacks?

~~~
michaelochurch
Dick Cheney has phylacteries (Horcruxes).

------
JeremyMorgan
I didn't know him and never heard of him but it sounds like world is a bit
worse off without him. Too young. RIP fellow Geek.

------
st3fan
fuck cancer

------
tawm
I'm very interested if we'll hear anything from rms' side about this.

------
tluyben2
That really sucks :( RIP man.

------
jamescrowe
I met him @ International Lisp Conference in 2009 and within 10-15 odd minutes
of our chat, he taught me so much about airline reservation system (& common
lisp) that it will be safe to say that Industry has lost a gem of a person and
top notch computer scientist. RIP Sir, you will be missed.

------
calibraxis
That is sad to hear!

For what it's worth, I had a question I keep on thinking to ask him, but for
whatever reason never got around to it. One should settle such questions.
Would have loved the memory of his answer.

~~~
metaobject
Would you like to share the question with HN?

