
Dan McCracken died, peacefully in his sleep - asnyder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_D._McCracken
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dandrews
Last year I wrote a fan letter of sorts to Professor McCracken, thanking him
for his ForTran book, which I credited as my inspiration for what became my
life work. (Ref: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1710523> )

He replied to my letter, saying:

===

"I love your story!!! Warms my heart like little else. I am absolutely
delighted to have had a hand in your choice of career, given that you are
pleased with the choice.

"By golly, I too think my books were clear! I'm still teaching. Not Fortran,
but beginning CS. When I get frantic I pick out my first Fortran book, or a
later one, and look for a good example. It's usually there!

"Makes me think of writing a book in a modern language. For about two seconds.
The energy isn't there any more. Love to teach, but writing a book is a very
much bigger deal than it was back then, and I don't see how I could hack it.
Well, I am 79.

"Thanks a million for your mail. Definitely made my day."

===

I'm glad today that I got to do that. RIP, Professor.

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asnyder
I was privileged to have him as a Professor. We would have lunch sometimes and
discuss programming paradigms and modern web techniques. He'll be missed.

~~~
alnayyir
You had an opportunity I could only dream of.

I've never had access to a mentor of any kind, on the job or otherwise.

I still hope to have one someday.

That he would spend that kind of time with his students (undergrad? grad? I
don't know or care.) is impressive and says a lot.

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docmarionum1
I just took his course last semester. Glad I had the opportunity. He was
always full of interesting stories.

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quizbiz
I never knew him or even knew of him until now. But it must be grand to pass
on like that after a long meaningful life that impacted many others. I look
forward to exploring his works.

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rwmj
Do people really "die peacefully in their sleep" or is this a euphemism? I
can't imagine, given how painful (eg) a heart attack is, that you could sleep
through it.

~~~
dragonquest
The current theory goes that dying peacefully in sleep is possible. Elizabeth
Simpson of the Virginian-Pilot explored this question further and a nice
little article summarizing the excerpts from the AHCJ discussion can be found
at: [http://www.healthjournalism.org/blog/2011/07/reporter-
explor...](http://www.healthjournalism.org/blog/2011/07/reporter-explores-
dying-peacefully-in-his-sleep/)

~~~
jodrellblank
My question is, given the existence of sleep paralysis which is both
terrifying and plausibly able to leave "no evidence of thrashing about", if
many people died "peacefully" but also awake and very scared.

~~~
gwillen
As a sufferer of sleep paralysis, I would think it almost impossible that
sleep paralysis itself could persist through dying painfully, since pain or
other external stimuli (or passage of time, usually less than a minute) will
generally kick you out of it.

That doesn't preclude the existence of some other paralysis mechanism, but I
am not aware of any, so I think it's just wild speculation.

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transitive
I'm a City College Student. I've taken 2 courses with Prof. McCracken and
spoken with him privately on several occasions as well. He was an amazing man.
A truly kind heart who knew how to bring out the best in people. Teaching was
something he was very passionate about, he was still teaching courses last
spring, well past the point of retirement. Dan McCracken knew how to make a
difference to people and that was his real gift.

He could instruct in technical subjects, but he was already over that point of
his life when I got to meet him. He had written his books, done his service
with the ACM, made his contributions to the profession. What he devoted
himself to later in life was cultivating people. He knew exactly how to nudge
a student in the right direction to make them press onward. It worked for me.
I don't think I would have made it through my freshman year without his
encouragement.

I'll miss him. He was a wonderful person, a great teacher, and a warm
presence. We should all be so lucky to as to know someone like him.

------
wyclif
One of the few theologian-programmers. RIP.

~~~
tomjen3
Not as rare as you would think. Knuth, though not formally trained, has been
doing the same (from his wikipedia page):

>In addition to his writings on computer science, Knuth, a Lutheran,[10] is
also the author of 3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated,[11] in which he examines the
Bible by a process of systematic sampling, namely an analysis of chapter 3,
verse 16 of each book. Each verse is accompanied by a rendering in
calligraphic art, contributed by a group of calligraphers under the leadership
of Hermann Zapf.

~~~
gjm11
3:16 is a beautiful book, and the idea underlying it is a very nice one. Knuth
also has a book called "Things a computer scientist rarely talks about",
derived from a set of lectures he gave at MIT, which is mostly about the 3:16
project.

I don't think it was exactly "a group of calligraphers under the leadership of
Hermann Zapf". I think Knuth worked with each calligrapher individually; Zapf
just happens to be the most famous of them (albeit mostly for his work in
typography).

Someone -- I forget who -- called Knuth's technique in the 3:16 project "the
way of the cross section", which is a lovely pun.

(In case it is relevant to anyone's evaluation of the above: I am an atheist
but spent years as a Christian.)

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zitterbewegung
Should there be a Black bar at the top to signified a great person has died?

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TrentBrown
I'm sitting here looking at the brown, dog-eared old McCracken Fortran IV book
from my high school comp sci class (1978). What magic it was to conceive of a
program, cut it onto punched cards, suck the stack through a card reader, and
then see my output appear, line by line, on the dot-matrix printer. Thank you,
professor, for your contribution to computer science and for inspiring me to
find the work I love.

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mark_l_watson
I used his FORTRAN book for my first job out of college - very useful.

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rosariom
he was a nice person and great professor... I am glad I had the opportunity to
take a class with him

