
James Golick has died - waffle_ss
https://twitter.com/jill380/status/548978785404874753
======
mcarrano
James was in a car accident in Mexico:
[https://twitter.com/jill380/status/549016126035095552](https://twitter.com/jill380/status/549016126035095552)

I briefly did work for Normal this past summer, where James was the CTO. He
was a great guy and I'll never forget the standup we did while standing on our
chairs at the Quirky office... That was James' idea to do that.

------
milesf
I remember interviewing James for a podcast I used to produce. It was
hilarious in that many of my friends are strong Christians, and many of James'
friends are part of the BDSM community. We could not have been more polar
opposites on many aspects of our worldviews, but we both loved the Ruby
programming language and surrounding community.

Both of us had "fallout" from that interview, me for interviewing a "heathen"
and James for associating with someone so "vanilla". We both laughed, and we
both remained friends.

I'm really going to miss James.

~~~
gaustin
I met you and James at my first Ruby conference. I didn't ever get to know
James well but that was the start of a sea change in my career.

I never heard that interview but I'm smiling imagining the interaction.

~~~
milesf
It was a typical podcast talk between typical Rubyists. There's a copy of it
up on archive.org:

[https://archive.org/details/Coderpath10-JamesGolick](https://archive.org/details/Coderpath10-JamesGolick)

I think the only people who would really have been offended by it are those
who hadn't listen to it :) It's the same sort of banter you hear at clubs,
conferences, and other podcasts, except that I'm not very smart and James is
(or was... ugh, still having a hard time believing he's gone).

~~~
Argorak
I just listened to it and it is full of good quotes, my favourite:
"Discussions without good definitions are doomed to fail." (about the upcoming
NoSQL dabate). I feel that's still ringing true in that sector.

------
Croaky
If you're a Rails developer, you probably have a
config/initializers/backtrace_silencers.rb file in your app. Think of James
the next time you see that file. He wrote the initial implementation:

[http://jamesgolick.com/2007/12/1/noisy-backtraces-got-you-
do...](http://jamesgolick.com/2007/12/1/noisy-backtraces-got-you-down.html)

DHH later ported the work to Rails:

[https://github.com/rails/rails/commit/f42c77f927eb49b00e84d3...](https://github.com/rails/rails/commit/f42c77f927eb49b00e84d355e07de48723d03fcb.patch)

I knew James mostly online and a little in person from various programming
conferences. He was smart, funny, and kind. He made a difference. He will be
missed.

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rhgraysonii
Just a note (and please tell me if its OT/inappropriate), but with these types
of events, people often concentrate on the 'what' that made it happen.
However, the way a man dies does not define him. It is his work and
contribution, which James had a ton of. I personally think celebrating James'
contributions to open source, and his talks, and writing does him much more
justice than speculating at a cause of death.

RIP

~~~
51Cards
This is very true, however many people also achieve understanding and closure
through details. It allows them to absorb what at first blush seems
incomprehensible. Is there something they could have done, should they have
known if he was ill, etc. We want to understand how this could have happened.
You're right, it doesn't define the person though, but it helps frame the
reality of the shock.

~~~
rhgraysonii
This is true. Personally, I have always dealt with death in a strange way
(compared to peers). Thank you for the insight.

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arach
I met James a few times in Montreal when we both lived there and quickly
decided he was incredibly smart and awesome. From a distance, I admired his
work and taste and I was thrilled to learn about his move to NY. I'm sure he
had a lot of enthusiasm for his relatively new life here (NY) and lots of
things he wanted to do. I can't understand deaths like this, and it's very
difficult to accept. It's a really tough loss.

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YuriNiyazov
Who was he?

~~~
rhgraysonii
He did a lot of great talks, as well as blog writing. He also was the main
developer of resource_controller (a rails library)[0]

0\.
[https://github.com/jamesgolick/resource_controller](https://github.com/jamesgolick/resource_controller)

~~~
simonrand
Totally unknown fact that resource_controller was initially extracted from a
project James was working on with me (he was doing the coding) 7 odd years
ago, we never fully discussed it as the project never saw the light of day (it
was for a client) but I'm pretty sure the crazy client requirements drove the
thinking behind it in some part.. I still have the half finished project
somewhere, must dig it out..

Pretty shocked about his death, an inspirational guy.

------
apalmblad
I'm shocked; I saw a talk or two he did in Vancouver, and really enjoyed that
he tackled deeper technical topics. He's too young to have passed away.

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boonez123
I saw one of his talks and he definitely had a knack for taking extremely
technical issues and making them easy to understand!

Below is more information surrounding the accident.

[http://jpupdates.com/2014/12/28/puerto-vallarta-mexico-
two-j...](http://jpupdates.com/2014/12/28/puerto-vallarta-mexico-two-jewish-
tourists-killed-car-accident-saturday/)

------
thejspr
James' talk on how to debug anything was one of the best tech talks I saw this
year [http://www.confreaks.com/videos/3451-goruco-how-to-debug-
any...](http://www.confreaks.com/videos/3451-goruco-how-to-debug-anything)

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fn
Wow. I worked with James a few years back. This hits home hard.

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foxhill
does anyone have any information relating to what happened? recent activity
suggests it was a sudden/unexpected event, but i don't really like to guess.

~~~
abreu_alexandre
[https://twitter.com/jill380/status/549016126035095552](https://twitter.com/jill380/status/549016126035095552)

------
rubyfan
So sad to hear this. Too many rubyists gone this year. I knew him only loosely
from conferences and twitter but the guy was interesting and inspiring.

------
ChrisAntaki
Sad to see a great person like him leave us.

I recommend everyone check out defensive driving. You just never know what
state of mind other drivers are in.

~~~
fubarred
Not sure of the circumstances beyond a car accident in MX, but it's awful and
painful.

For those still living, a few simple best practices for ground transport that
cut the risk:

0\. Always hire a driver foreign countries.

1\. Make sure the driver isn't high, drunk or insane.

2\. Assess yourself the vehicle is in safe, working order and has enough mass
and safety features to "win" an accident.

3\. Wear a seatbelt, even if it's hidden or nobody else does.

Being reasonably careful isn't about being a p$ssy, "worrying too much" or
eliminating all unforeseeable risks, it's about not letting other people down
by dying and causing a loss that really could have been prevented by making
other choices. There are plenty of difficult/nearly impossible unpreventable
ways to shuffle off the mortal coil, no reason to volunteer. I'd venture this
wasn't one of those, because JG sounded like a sensible fellow.

Condolences, again.

~~~
lectrick
I would not be typing this were it not for wearing a seatbelt.

People, wear your seatbelts. Especially when you normally might not (like in a
cab).

~~~
fubarred
Bump. Thanks for this. Taxis, microbuses and shuttle buses... if they have
'em, use 'em. If they don't, opt for the next one.

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jdefarge
A big loss to computing, a terrible loss to family and friends. My sincere
condolences. :'-(

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samgranieri
Oh no .. It's so sad when people leave us too soon... :(

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pusewicz
Unbelievable. RIP James!

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nso95
Fuck.

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xer0x
sad.

