
Erik Naggum (1965-2009) RIP - dmm
http://twitter.com/kjetilv/status/2251766884
======
lisper
I keep hearing about how Erik was such a smart guy and how he contributed so
much to the Lisp community. I have a serious question for those of you who say
that his net influence was positive despite his abrasiveness: other than "The
Long, Painful History of Time", a few pithy quotes, and a lot of rants on
usenet, what exactly did Erik contribute?

~~~
menloparkbum
I used to be a prolific ranter with an interest in Lisp. Running into Eric's
posts inspired me to give that up - I didn't want online rants to be my
legacy. Related, Xah Lee's crazy writings inspired me to take my social life
seriously and not over-share on the internet. Both of them, and the rest of
the comp.lang.lisp, taught me that getting stuff done was more important than
making sure I was using the most aesthetically pure computing environment.
Another lisp programmer, Philip Greenspun, also demonstrated the negative
effects of too much writing online. In addition, he showed me that photography
was mostly a factor of how much film and equipment one can afford, which
inspired me to give that up and focus more on music and other things I had
natural talent for. Finally, and only related in form, reading Ludwig
Wittgenstein's later "notebook" style writings inspired me to give up on
philosophy and enter industry instead of philosophy grad school.

~~~
jacobolus
> _photography was mostly a factor of how much film and equipment one can
> afford,_

Bullshit.

~~~
Confusion
Quite an eloquent rebuttal. Such a knee jerk response really makes me
reconsider the truth of the statement.

~~~
jacobolus
I'm sorry, but the original claim dismissed an entire field of art by claiming
that it boiled down to amount of wealth. I thought of writing something longer
– perhaps an elegiac about the typical disparagement of what one does not
understand, or a list of parallel examples that would show the stupidity of
the argument (“computer programming was mostly a factor of how much CPU one
could afford.”), but then I decided that it was so self-evidently absurd that
it would be a waste of breath to do more than simply point it out as bullshit.

~~~
Confusion
_the original claim dismissed an entire field of art by claiming that it
boiled down to amount of wealth_ I can imagine that, say in the seventies,
both camera's and film were a lot more expensive than nowadays(relatively). As
practice makes perfect, really getting into photography, wouldn't be an option
for all people then, because it would be too expensive a hobby.

It may have been a pretty weird blanket statement, but there may also have
been a hidden context that makes it a reasonable statement.

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dmm
I knew him mostly through his usenet posts; he always seemed to have
interesting opinions, often expressed very bluntly.

I really like his essay, "The Long, Painful History of Time":
<http://naggum.no/lugm-time.html> See also local-time, a common lisp package
based on his ideas: <http://common-lisp.net/project/local-time/>

------
sprachspiel
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Erik_Naggum>

~~~
TweedHeads
"Whoever decided to use the semicolon to end something should just be taken
out and have his colon semified."

Thanks Erik, I didn't know you, but you made my life happier for a whole
minute :-D

------
sho
To announce someone's death in a fucking TWEET is so insulting I actually feel
angry.

update: Mod me down all you want, twitter fans. I'll be happy to tweet your
deaths as well, if I can fit it in between what I had for breakfast and the
funny thing my cat just did.

~~~
cdibona
When my sister died, the reality was that I didn't know everyone that was
important to her, so I had to resort to emailing all those she had emailed in
a mass mailing she had sent a while back. I also created a web page so that
people would find when they searched for her.

If twitter had been around, I would have posted there too.

Years on, I still get email from old friends of hers who found out via the
page and want to chat about her to me.

------
plinkplonk
He had a unique online persona - simultaneously nasty and fanatic(about lisp)
and brilliant.

~~~
vinutheraj
_Look at the United States of America, with its depressingly moronic units
instead of going metric, with its inability to write dates in either ascending
or descending order of unit size, and with its insistence upon the 12-hour
clock, clearly evidencing the importance of the short-term pain threshold and
resistance to doing anyone else's bidding. And now the one-time freest nation
of the world has turned dictatorship with a dangerous moron in charge, set to
attack Iraq to revenge his father's loss. Those who laughed when I said that
stupidity is the worst threat to mankind laugh no more; they wait with bated
breath to see if the world's most powerful incoherent moron will launch the
world into a world war simply because he is too fucking stupid. But what
really pisses me off is the spineless American people who fails to stop this
madness. Presidents have been shot and killed before._

This is a fine example of the nastiness I guess, but it kinda makes sense in a
weird sorta way !

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jodrellblank
Age ~44? What are the oblique references to his declining health related to?

(" I am unable to keep my company in operation for health reasons, but it is
one of those things I just cannot give up. Instead of being a commercial
undertaking, it is now only a hobby. Until my health improves, which it might
never do sufficiently" - <http://naggum.no> )

~~~
neuro
ulcerative colitis

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patrickg-zill
Is there any other confirmation of Erik's death?

~~~
pasbesoin
[http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8u5dp/erik_nagg...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8u5dp/erik_naggum_19652009_rip/c0afqzh)

------
neuro
if you ever played street basketball you would understand the context of
erik's controversial posts. next time you're in ny, head over to west 4th
street's basketball court in manhattan - the language is thick and the
gestures are threatening, only to be followed up with chilly beer and dubbies.
the net is relatively new, most people aren't aware you have to put on 3D
glasses.

------
uriel
This is really sad, he was one of the greatest thinkers of the hacker
community, certainly up there with pg.

This doesn't make him justice, but his rant about XML is one of my favorite
rants ever: <http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/xml/s-exp_vs_XML>

------
kragen
Naggum was sort of the anti-pg (actually on Wiki he's described as
PaulGraham's EvilTwin): people who loved Lisp were driven away from the
community because they couldn't take the abuse, and so comp.lang.lisp became a
vicious slime pit.

There's more discussion and some minimal confirmation on reddit:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8u5dp/erik_nagg...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8u5dp/erik_naggum_19652009_rip/)

Unlike most of the posters there, I'm glad he's gone. The world is a better
place without him, and maybe now the Lisp community can begin to heal.

~~~
TomOfTTB
The reality of the world is there's a place for all kinds. The thoughtful
speaker needs the passionate militant because not everyone has an open mind.
Think Martin Luther King and Malcolm X

Moreover, the world needs these type of people on all sides to make sure the
truth gets heard. Even if Mr. Naggum wasn't speaking the truth his opinion
helped keep minds open to his side of things.

Honestly, as annoyed as I get at times by people like him I can also see how
it's a noble pursuit. As much as people say they don't care what other's think
just about everyone does to some extent. In that way it can't be an easy job
to scream what you believe is the truth until people listen. So really people
like Mr. Naggum are giving up a large piece of happiness to continue their
devotion to what they believe is truth. That's admirable.

~~~
zimbabwe
Also remember the duality of those two people: Martin Luther King at times
called for violence and Malcolm X was mostly a peaceful protestor. It's easier
to put them into categories but nobody is so bluntly one way or the other.

Just as I hear Paul Graham's name blasted frequently online, for a variety of
reasons, I'm certain Naggum inspired as many people as he scared off. Never
assume an internet personality is the whole story.

~~~
gruseom
As someone who owes a lot to Paul Graham's influence in the very space (Lisp
hacking) that Erik Naggum inhabited, I object to your implied equivalence
between the two.

 _I'm certain Naggum inspired as many people as he scared off._

I realize you mean well, but this is glib. Erik Naggum, in his online
capacity, was a consummate intellectual bully. (It's hard to imagine anything
less true of PG than that.) You know how everyone talks about how
dysfunctional the Lisp community is? Naggum did more than anyone else to
poison it. Go read the archives of CLL and see for yourself how it starts out
as a wellspring of intelligent and civil discourse and then decays under the
influence of some smart, funny, nasty characters. The whole thing is a case
study in the fragility of online communities.

As one longtime Lisper explained to me, Naggum was so smart and willing to put
so much time into it that he became a torque on the whole thing. Most people
who found his style obnoxious simply left, and for many (not all) who remained
he became the local standard. People began to imitate him and it ultimately
affected not only that group but the Lisp world as a whole. Many nice people
have tried to repair the damage, but it may never happen: the niceness
required to do so is orders of magnitude greater than the poison. It's like
trying to clean up an oil spill.

Erik Naggum was obviously really smart and could be quite funny (I enjoyed
that aspect of his writing), and for all I know he was a smashing great guy in
person - but as far as the above-mentioned harm goes, those things made it
worse, not better.

Edit: given that HN's defining quality is to foster intelligent and civil
discourse in a way that _doesn't_ get poisoned, your equivalence (and the
place you posted it) are kind of ironic. But I know you weren't trying to make
a huge point out of it.

~~~
zimbabwe
I don't know much about Naggum, so it's entirely possible you're right.
Apologies if I misinterpreted his relationship with the community.

~~~
gruseom
No problem. Thanks for figuring out that I wasn't attacking you personally :)

