[HN Gopher] Fredrik Lundh has died
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       Fredrik Lundh has died
        
       Author : fghorow
       Score  : 313 points
       Date   : 2021-12-12 14:16 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (lwn.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (lwn.net)
        
       | bredren wrote:
       | It is easy to take for granted an import and the life force that
       | went into creating that code. That PIL and the pillow fork exist
       | can seem to be a matter of course but they are gifts. Many thanks
       | to Fredrik Lundh.
        
       | chirau wrote:
       | import re
       | 
       | Rest in peace effbot
        
       | syngrog66 wrote:
       | I used and loved his ElementTree and PIL libraries many times,
       | during the height of my Python days
       | 
       | RIP Mr. Lundh
        
       | actually_a_dog wrote:
       | Black bar? I don't think there's anyone who has used Python who
       | hasn't used his work. His website was always amusing,
       | occasionally useful, and frequently educational.
       | 
       | The announcement said it was sudden. I hope it wasn't COVID.
       | 
       | RIP, effbot.
        
       | indrora wrote:
       | Effbot was a voice of clarity when I went to learn Python, long
       | before 2 was ready to collect dust on the shelf.
       | 
       | I picked up the Python Standard Library book used after reading
       | some apress book on Python. The book was clear and a good guide
       | to the language, honestly one of the reasons I began to push
       | people to learn it.
       | 
       | Later, I probably ran into him on irc.
       | 
       | I've used PIL, and later Pillow, as well as ElementTree in
       | personal and professional work. Without him, I suspect part of my
       | professional life wouldn't have happened. Funny how that is.
       | 
       | My thoughts go out to his family. I can't imagine what it's like
       | to discover just how many lives he touched.
        
       | agumonkey wrote:
       | import regards
        
         | ridaj wrote:
         | I believe the correct package in this instance is `condolences`
        
           | agumonkey wrote:
           | it was to hint at his role in the 're' package
        
         | 323 wrote:
         | print("F")
        
       | antod wrote:
       | In the early 2000s, ElementTree was such a relief after trying to
       | use the stdlib DOM or SAX parsers. That was my first conscious
       | use of effbot code, and I was grateful for it.
        
       | junon wrote:
       | A good deal of projects over the years have relied on 're' at
       | their core. Thank you, Fredrik Lundh.
        
         | samwillis wrote:
         | And PIL (now Pillow), truly inspiring Open Source contributor!
        
           | glofish wrote:
           | and elementtree, one of the first "sane" XML parsing modules
        
           | junon wrote:
           | Oh I didn't know that either, yeah that too. Wow.
        
       | chubot wrote:
       | I'm very sad to hear this, but I'm glad it was shared, and it's
       | great to see his work appreciated. His effbot site helped me a
       | lot early in my career. I even visited last year because I hadn't
       | seen it around in quite awhile. Best wishes to all who knew him.
        
       | vram22 wrote:
       | I really liked the look of his site, not just the content, which
       | was, of course, good. I first came across it early in my Python
       | career. It had a light green theme or look, IIRC.
        
       | jiaminglimjm wrote:
       | inaW lilaWhi wainaW ilayhi raji`uwna
        
         | kowlo wrote:
         | https://pasteboard.co/pxT0WYx5nvgg.png
         | 
         | cannot translate!
         | 
         | edit: thanks @ comments below, need to manually switch to
         | Arabic
        
           | 5e92cb50239222b wrote:
           | Looks like a bug in their language detection.
           | 
           | Switch to Arabic manually and it works fine.
           | 
           | > We belong to God and to Him we shall return
        
           | WanderPanda wrote:
           | Google gives me: ,, We belong to God and to Him we shall
           | return" when selecting Arabic. I'm just learning Arabic but
           | I'm wondering why op wrote it including the pronunciation
           | marks which is very uncommon in daily use. I can imagine that
           | it is a quote from the Quran
        
             | josh_fyi wrote:
             | >including the pronunciation marks
             | 
             | It was likely copied.
             | 
             | > very uncommon in daily use. I can imagine that it is a
             | quote from the Quran
             | 
             | They are common in religious texts.
        
             | abdulhaq wrote:
             | Yes, 2:156 https://quran.com/2/156 it's said by muslims
             | when something bad happens, especially when hearing news
             | that someone has passed away
        
       | JasonFruit wrote:
       | If anyone is responsible for Python's success, after Guido, it's
       | Fredrik Lundh. When I was learning Python, it was his libraries
       | and his documentation I kept using and learning from. I feel this
       | one more personally than others, even though I never interacted
       | with him.
        
         | paganel wrote:
         | I used his Tkinter docs to write my first real Python program,
         | in 2003. Two years later I was getting my first job as a Python
         | programmer, that's still what I do for a living. RIP to
         | Fredrik, his work changed life for the better for many of us.
        
       | rodmena wrote:
       | And Guido's message: https://lwn.net/Articles/878325/
        
       | dangoor wrote:
       | I've used a lot of Python in my career, and Effbot's work was a
       | huge boost on much that I did. ElementTree was a boon when I was
       | building an RSS reader, and PIL was a go to tool for image work.
       | 
       | There has been a lot written recently about "open source being
       | broken", and it's true that the financial model doesn't always
       | work out. But someone like Fredrik who gave so much freely to the
       | community was able to impact people far and wide in a positive
       | way. RIP
        
       | f311a wrote:
       | Sad news. He also wrote a lot of articles:
       | https://web.archive.org/web/20190222003219/http://effbot.org...
        
       | nurblieh wrote:
       | Fredrik was an important contributor to YouTube over the years
       | and truly one of a kind. In particular, he was critical to the
       | internationalization efforts.
       | 
       | Whenever I ran into him on email or in Zurich, it brightened my
       | day.
        
         | taylorhughes wrote:
         | Such a good guy. I remember he raised a very gnarly translation
         | issue one time in which we translated something that said
         | "Share them" that unintentionally translated to "cut them up
         | into pieces and share them at dinner" in Swedish. Fredrik was
         | very passionate in trying to correct the issue in a hurry :)
        
       | raymondh wrote:
       | The effbot was an early mentor me. He had a brusque style, an
       | excellent sense of design, and a wry wit. He thought deeply about
       | programming problems and did not shy away from non-trivial tasks
       | such as regular expressions. His ElementTree library humanized
       | XML parsing and generation in Python.
        
       | bjourne wrote:
       | :( Without all the packages, books and tutorials Fredrik Lundh
       | wrote, Python would never have become such an amazing language as
       | it is. Vila i frid.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | fghorow wrote:
       | AKA "the effbot", a long time contributor to Python.
        
       | noufalibrahim wrote:
       | The library that I first used which got me stuck to Python was
       | Tkinter. It was a welcome relief from building GUIs using GTK in
       | C. The documentation which I used was from effbot (which seems to
       | be offline now)
       | http://web.archive.org/web/20180802131839/http://effbot.org/....
       | That led me to making Python my "primary language" when it still
       | wasn't very popular and shaped my career.
       | 
       | I think it's hard, if not impossible, to overestimate how many
       | lives Mr. Lundh's work has touched and improved over the course
       | of his career. RIP.
        
         | vram22 wrote:
         | >I think it's hard, if not impossible, to overestimate how many
         | lives Mr. Lundh's work has touched and improved over the course
         | of his career. RIP.
         | 
         | Yes. The same applies about tons of other people who have put
         | their work out on the net, for years, which all of us benefit
         | from.
        
       | aclark wrote:
       | RIP Fredrik. Long live PIL/Pillow.
        
       | vaxmeup wrote:
       | Someone with an auto-immune disease is precisely the type of
       | person that should _not_ be taking a vaccine.
       | 
       | Vax mandates are basically death sentences for some people.
        
       | toxik wrote:
       | En legend har gatt ur tiden. Vila i frid.
        
       | progre wrote:
       | GNU Effbot
        
       | vaxmeup wrote:
       | So knowing he had an auto-immune disease - can anyone confirm he
       | got the 'vaccine'?
       | 
       | Lots of people "suddenly dying" lately.
        
       | vaxmeup wrote:
       | "Vaccines" cause death. This is facts and science.
       | 
       | Vaxxers/maskers are pyschopathic.
        
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       (page generated 2021-12-12 23:01 UTC)