
So very sad to hear about the passing of Ruby legend Jim Weirich - davidchua
https://twitter.com/dhh/status/436410949919313920
======
JangoSteve
Jim was an amazing guy, and I wish I had spent more time talking with him.

There was a time several years ago when the Ruby community was very vibrant
and energetic, and in all that energy, just a little hostile to newcomers.
There was a lot of hype about the best new testing methods with RSpec and this
new thing called Cucumber, 100% paired programming all the time, 100% TDD, and
110% test coverage, fat-model, skinny-controller, decorators and service-based
architectures, and on and on. These were all good things on the path to
quality software as a community goal, but to a newcomer, it was overwhelming.
It was the fanatical attitude and the all-too-common phrase, "you're doing it
wrong."

I had already been doing Ruby for a couple years when all of this hype came to
a peak. I remember pushing back over dinner table discussions with various
speakers at conferences that this attitude was hurting the community. It was
erecting a barrier to beginners. We were telling people they couldn't just
build something that did something. They had to do it this way, using all
these tools and methodologies. Unless you know and fully understand the
purpose and constraints and context for what someone is building, how can you
tell them they're doing it wrong? Where was the support for learning
progressively? What happened to the joy of just building something? After all,
this is where Ruby, as a language, shines!

I bring all this up, because I met Jim at one of the first Ruby conferences I
had ever gone to around this time. Though I had been doing Ruby for a couple
years, I was relatively new to the conference-going community, and so not part
of the "in-crowd". I remember the highlight of that conference for me was
talking with Jim.

He seemed not to care for the existence of any sort of clique while
simultaneously being its unknowing leader. He was very approachable and
friendly. But more importantly, he was a great listener and thinker. I
remember talking with him about my views on TDD and pair-programming (at the
time, the view that "it depends" was controversial), and how the hype was
hurting the community. He was one of the few who gave it considerable thought,
and after discussing it, even encouraged me to give a talk. As someone new to
the conference and public developer community, and outside the speaker in-
crowd, this was very encouraging.

I had been asking what happened to the joy of just building something in the
community at that time, but I can honestly say, Jim never lost it.

Jim, you'll be missed.

~~~
auggierose
I think once you started programming in "Ruby", you've given up your right to
talk about how to program in the right way. Just saying.

~~~
karmajunkie
I've seen a lot of snide, dickhead comments on HN, but dropping one like that
on a memorial thread for someone like Jim Weirich takes the cake.

~~~
auggierose
He's dead. Nothing I can say here will affect him in the slightest.

~~~
sweetcaroline
No, it won't affect him. But his family will be reading these later and it
will affect them.

~~~
auggierose
Yeah. Like the family of a programmer reads HN.

~~~
sweetcaroline
As a matter of fact they do. I'm very close with his family, and when I spoke
with them yesterday they were looking forward to reading the many threads and
posts about him on this and other websites. I can only hope they'll be strong
enough to ignore the cruel remarks made by heartless people like you.

~~~
glanotte
I don't know his family, but with Jim as their relative, I would pray they are
wise enough to ignore a troll. Jim was a wonderful man and this little person
doesn't matter, neither do his opinions.

------
venus
That is really sad news.

Jim Weirich was a real gem. Friendly, approachable and chatty, he didn't have
that aloofness so unfortunately common to some "personalities" in the ruby
commmunity. In the last couple of years he had been interested in controlling
drones with ruby, regularly posting articles on the Neo blog and speaking
about it at conferences. It was my great pleasure to spend an hour or so with
him in Singapore last year just chatting about drones, his _argus_ control
library, and applications present and future - he was a genuinely interested,
interesting, friendly man with a fantastic, giving spirit.

He was one of the founding fathers of what I like to think of as the "real"
ruby community and will be sorely missed.

------
codebeaker
As the author of Capistrano, we leant on Rake a great deal in the new version,
Jim was amazing in helping us through some of the weirder parts of the
integration, and always happy to discuss the pros and cons of our planned
approaches. I hope that the community can select someone to replace him. He's
done great work for the community.

~~~
cromulent
Good old SwitchTower. Thank you.

------
Argorak
Jim was a silent star of the Ruby community. Some newer Rubyists might not see
how important his work on Rake was on Rubys road from a toy language to a
serious development environment. Also, Rake was (to my knowledge) one of the
first libraries that aggressively leaned on Rubys block syntax for writing
DSLs.

On top of that, he was well known for his talks and ability to explain things.

A recommended read: an early statement on Ruby on the C2 Wiki (scroll down to
"User stories")

[http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?RubyLanguage](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?RubyLanguage)

------
viraptor
Just realised how often when working on some code I will try to contact the
original author based on git blame... but in the future, a lot of those people
won't be around anymore. I think we usually take for granted that people
working on the same project will be here - but in a couple of years "anyone
who worked on this module still alive?" may be depressingly more common. Not
even from the development perspective, but working on the same thing as
someone who's not alive anymore. Apart from long-term or famous construction
projects, I can't think of many non-art places where the author is preserved
in the history so permanently as in a source version control.

~~~
chimeracoder
Not to detract from the work that this man (or anyone else) has done, but it's
very rare for code to survive for very long without an active maintainer
before it succumbs to code rot.

Either someone else steps up to the plate and actively maintains the software,
or something else will replace it. Source control makes it easier to revisit
the past, but it doesn't ensure that the past will continue to stay current.

------
VeejayRampay
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FITJMJjASUs](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FITJMJjASUs)

This talk is a must-see, really shows off Jim Weirich's craft and overall
ability to be a great pedagogue.

~~~
Derbasti
Yes it is! This talk is absolutely awesome!

------
lukeholder
Very sad to hear. his last commit was only a day ago:
[https://github.com/jimweirich](https://github.com/jimweirich)

~~~
agumonkey
Someone spoke to him just yesterday
[http://www.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/1yfeb7/jim_weirich_cre...](http://www.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/1yfeb7/jim_weirich_creator_of_rake_passed_away_today/cfk1njr)

he was hacking as usual

~~~
petercooper
He seemed to really get into drones and copters whole heartedly over the past
year and appeared to be having a lot of fun with it :-)

------
craftsman
I met Jim at Rocky Mountain Ruby a couple years ago. He was friendly, easily
approachable, and had that hacker humor that is so fun. You could just tell he
loved everything about Ruby, hacking, and teaching and learning from others.

He sang Ruby Coding High at that conference:

[http://www.confreaks.com/videos/740-rockymtnruby2011-ruby-
co...](http://www.confreaks.com/videos/740-rockymtnruby2011-ruby-coding-high)

Thanks for helping us all get on a Ruby Coding High Jim, we'll miss you.

~~~
zefhous
Wow, cool to see you post this. I had the pleasure of playing with him in that
video! Many others have said it, but he was a joy to be around and always kind
and generous.

~~~
craftsman
Awesome! You guys were great. I thoroughly enjoyed that, so thanks to you too.

------
spellboots
Fitting that his last publicly visible github commit is adjusting a Rakefile:

[https://github.com/jimweirich/wyriki/commit/d28fac7f18aeacb0...](https://github.com/jimweirich/wyriki/commit/d28fac7f18aeacb00d8ad3460a0a5a901617c2d4)

~~~
rlt
There's something deeply moving about his last commit becoming a memorial to
him. I actually shed a tear when I saw this.

------
jcutrell
Sad news indeed.

I would say it is appropriate for any of you who have had the pleasure of
knowing Jim to add some information to his Wikipedia:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Weirich](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Weirich)
for those of us who didn't meet him.

------
jdhendrickson
I met him at BigRuby in Dallas, he was kind, knowledgeable, and incredibly
intelligent. He was interested in a very wide range of things, and I really
enjoyed discussing metallurgy, blacksmithing, controlling drones, ruby,
amongst other things. He was always willing to help, even if the problem was
beneath him. Rest In Peace Jim, you will be sorely missed.

------
mbrock
Jim Weirich linked warmly on his blog to something I wrote back in 2005. I was
17 at the time and found it very encouraging. That was possibly a reason I
kept on practicing my writing. Thanks Jim!

------
bitwes
I met Jim through a friend, and I've seen him at numerous conferences. He was
inspiring to be around. His energy and enthusiasm for programming was
contagious. Just hanging around the guy was great. I played my first D&D game
at a conference with him, and a great board game called Cosmic Encounters. I
always looked forward to seeing him. It is a testament to how great he was,
that people could have such little interaction with him and he could have such
a big impact on their lives.

------
lispm
Haven't met him... just from watching some of his talks via videos I'll got
the impression that we'll need more of these people. He had a great talent to
explain things.

A Hacker left us.

R.I.P.

------
kayoone
A great person and developer who will be dearly missed. He was too young, but
sadly is a prime example for the risks factors of heart disease. With
overweight like that over a long period of time, he most likely had blood
pressure and cholesterol issues, along with not much physical exercise. Of
course there are a ton of people in similar condition who get to be much
older, but still, risk factors are risk factors.

------
aslakhellesoy
I'm very sad to hear this. When I was more active in the Ruby community I'd
bump into Jim regularly at conferences. He was such a charismatic, smart and
above all - a very nice guy.

------
RDDavies
Wow. This is astounding. I happened to meet him and Dave Thomas a year or so
ago, and had lunch with them at a Ruby conference. Incredibly nice and funny
guy, who was _really_ smart.

------
draegtun
My first opensource creation was a port of Jim's wonderful Builder gem. Many
thanks Jim for the inspiration you'll be sorely missed.

------
kidmenot
This is sad. I'm not much of a Rubyist, but I leant on Rake quite a bit to
automate builds and whatnot.

------
theceprogrammer
Jim, rest in peace brother ! you will be cherished forever along with all the
greats. You have joined the ranks of the fallen heros of both our craft and
otherwise. A life well lived, full of joy, full of love.... we will miss you.

------
girishso
I can never forget the discussion I had with Jim during Rubyconf India last
year. He was so devoted to coding… I envied him. Very friendly and energetic.
Very sad to hear the news.

------
charlieflowers
Jim Weirich was a legend, and deservedly so. Rake was (and is) a masterpiece.
I'm sad to see Jim go and I want to pay respect to his contributions and his
life.

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diminish
Sad day, just read his last tweet few hours ago.....

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seanhandley
I'm devestated to hear this. I met Jim at Scot Ruby 2012. A sweet, bright,
kind and funny man. RIP.

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shahinh
Jim was a great man and an awesome contributor to the Ruby community. He will
be missed indeed. RIP.

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jackson1990
Jim was a great guy and an awesome contributor to the Ruby community. He will
be missed indeed. RIP.

------
shahinh
Jim was a great guy and an awesome contributor to the Ruby community. He will
be missed indeed. RIP.

------
jackson1990
Jim was a great guy and an awesome contributor to the Ruby community. He will
be missed indeed. RIP.

------
jackson1990
Jim was a great guy and an awesome contributor to the Ruby community. He will
be missed indeed. RIP

------
jackson1990
Jim was a best guy and an awesome contributor to the Ruby community. He will
be missed RIP.

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shahinh
Jim was an actual guy, and I wish I had spent more and more time talking with
him.

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tedchs
Jim contributed a great deal to the Ruby community and will be deeply missed.

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jackson1990
Jim was a great guy and an awesome contributor to the Ruby community.

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shahinh
Jim was best guy, and I wish I had spent more time talking with him.

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jackson1990
I wish I had spent more time talking with him.

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shahinh
Your post is Great read, thanks for posting.

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UNIXgod
This is sad.

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mentaat
what was the cause of death?

~~~
winslow
From the other thread (Jim's last Github commit) it states he passed away due
to a heart attack at age 57.

[1] -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7271909](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7271909)

