[HN Gopher] In Memoriam: Noah Gibbs
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In Memoriam: Noah Gibbs
Author : schwad
Score : 220 points
Date : 2025-01-03 16:17 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.schwad.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.schwad.org)
| ernestipark wrote:
| Over a decade ago I was a summer intern on the same team as Noah.
| I was a pretty clueless college student with no real work
| experience on a team of real experienced rockstars. It was a long
| time ago, but I still remember how kind and helpful he was. I
| barely knew what a terminal was, but I remember him walking over
| to my desk or going over to his, and having him explain things so
| cheerfully and patiently. He was so genuinely thoughtful and
| kind. Folks like Noah help shape the careers of the next
| generation and can make tech a good place to work. Rest in peace.
| tessierashpool wrote:
| I didn't know him well, but I interacted with him a few times. I
| liked him, and I enjoyed his book _Rebuilding Rails_.
| RangerScience wrote:
| I went to college with him, but we didn't know each other well.
| Talked Ruby and "does it scale" once, he had what's still one of
| my favorite comments - something along the lines of: "Ruby is
| easy to write, and so it's also easy to _re_ write. You don't
| need to worry so much about getting it right the first time."
| ksec wrote:
| Does anyone know what happened? I haven't seen it mentioned
| anywhere. He was posting about breaking his ankle while skiing
| and a few days later we have the sad news.
|
| We first lost Chris Seaton not long ago and now Noah from the
| Ruby Community. I will copy what Nate ( Maintainer of Puma )
| wrote about Noah down below.
|
| _Noah was: A member of the YJIT team.
|
| The author of "Rebuilding Rails"
|
| The creator of the Rails Ruby Bench.
|
| His big dream in life was to help build the Ruby community up. He
| wanted to be like the folks who worked to create the railroads
| during the industrial revolution. He thought Ruby was the best
| way to do (fill in the blank) and he wanted to share his
| knowledge as widely as possible. His kindness and generosity
| extended into every corner of his life.
|
| Noah's passing was sudden and very fast. He did not suffer. He is
| survived by his wife and children.
|
| Noah's wife has asked me to collect stories about Noah for the
| benefit of his children. They couldn't see how deep and complex
| and layered his life was, and she would like them to be able to
| understand that some day.
|
| And If you have a story about Noah, please share it in this
| Google form [1] . You can read about some of those stories on
| Reddit in [2]_
|
| [1]
| https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfQgRPWa7AjjfrOJKjg...
|
| [2]
| https://old.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/1hmynb3/noah_gibbs_co...
| solarmist wrote:
| It appears that the stories shared are being posted to his
| Facebook account.
|
| https://www.facebook.com/share/1K49KzbZN7/
| olivierlacan wrote:
| Thank you for sharing this.
|
| Reading memories from the people Noah impacted in his life
| feels like a good way to understand the kind of person he
| was.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| > Does anyone know what happened? I haven't seen it mentioned
| anywhere.
|
| I haven't seen what happened either. Hopefully it's not
| inappropriate to bring up in this thread, but I've always found
| it curious how there seems to so often be a cultural
| expectation of secrecy when someone dies young, and some treat
| it as wrong to even wonder. I'm not sure why that is. Is this
| something specific to Western cultures, or is this worldwide?
|
| It makes total sense to me to respect the family of the
| deceased and to not ever ask them for details, but I do find it
| interesting how often this happens. People are naturally going
| to wonder: it would make sense that there might even
| evolutionary pressure to be curious about how someone died.
| (With the disclaimer of "off the cuff musings about
| evolutionary psychology are probably usually wrong.")
| n2d4 wrote:
| > I'm not sure why that is.
|
| Well, you explained it in your second paragraph; to respect
| the family, and the deceased themself. Some causes of death
| (suicide, overdose, etc.) come with a lot of private
| information about the individual that they might not have
| chosen to share.
| neom wrote:
| I read somewhere the family (It seemed) said "he died very
| quickly in no pain".
|
| (Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/1hmynb3/noah_
| gibbs_co...)
| Trasmatta wrote:
| Yeah, that makes sense. I think it's always right for
| family's to choose not to share details, and I don't think
| it's ever appropriate for people to bug them for details.
|
| I think what I wonder a little bit more about is why it's
| seen as inappropriate for people to just wonder what
| happened, even though I feel that's a natural human
| response, especially if they knew the person in some way
| (as long as that wondering doesn't move into boundary
| crossing).
| neom wrote:
| I don't think it's the wondering people are turned off
| by, it's the wondering out loud. I'd imagine everybody
| wonders. I have no opinion, but people (around the globe)
| seem to feel strongly about this.
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| It's generally considered rude to gawk at other peoples'
| suffering, even if it is a normal and empathizable
| reaction. I think this gets even more acute the closer to
| the suffering the action gets. I doubt many people would
| be _surprised_ that people are curious about what
| happened, though.
|
| (FWIW I perceived your comment as "natural curiousity"
| moreso than gawking, thanks to your respectful hedging.)
| n2d4 wrote:
| It's an awkward position to be in for the family of the
| deceased. They're already going through enough by
| griefing; if they'd rather not share, but are still
| constantly pestered about it by strangers, it's certainly
| not helping.
| quasarj wrote:
| Which is unfortunate, because all keeping it secret can do
| is lead to a lack of respect. We will all stand around and
| wonder, and whisper. There might even be rumors of suicide,
| when it was something completely unrelated.
|
| I refuse to adhere to this ridiculous idea.
| n2d4 wrote:
| If your relatives believe so, they can choose to share
| the cause of death. But at the same time, if they choose
| not to, I think we should respect that.
|
| I mean, I'm curious too. I think it's normal to be. But
| life goes on either way.
| harshreality wrote:
| I consider almost all deaths of people I don't know
| personally as a Schrodinger's box of possibilities.
| There's usually no need to collapse them. Except in cases
| where it's obvious, such as extreme sport accidents,
| there's no way to know for sure. Even terminal patients
| could resort to assisted suicide, which is ambiguous; is
| that suicide, or dying from the disease? A cause of death
| stated by relatives could even be an outright lie.
|
| "Lost battle with <disease>" could be used to refer to
| depression -> suicide. "Sudden [cardiovascular event]" or
| "died in their sleep" could be suicide or overdose. etc.
| rossta wrote:
| I don't speak for Noah's family but can share from my
| experience.
|
| I lost my wife suddenly and unexpectedly. The event was
| intensely traumatic for me and devastating for our
| extended family. One day, she and I were planning for the
| future. The next, I was left to raise our child by
| myself. In many ways, now several years later, I am still
| picking up the pieces.
|
| In the days and weeks following her death, I did the work
| of making public announcements about her passing, funeral
| arrangements, collecting stories and photos to share with
| our son. I received many questions asking how she died.
|
| While I appreciated the concern and believe it fair to be
| curious, I chose not to share details outside of our
| closest friends and family. The last thing I wanted to do
| was relive the experience. For me it was too painful.
|
| Honestly, I could care less about the public perception.
| It has had no bearing on my grief and responsibility to
| our son and extended family. I have not spent one ounce
| of energy thinking about how my choice has affected
| others outside our closest friends and relatives--they
| are the only ones to whom I have ever felt any sense of
| obligation. I have no regrets about this.
|
| As for Noah's family, I respect their decision, whatever
| it may be, whether conscious or not. My heart goes out to
| them.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| Privacy is a right of the living, not the dead.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| The family still lives.
| JamesSwift wrote:
| Well its been less than a week that the persons
| husband/father passed away unexpectedly. The sense of loss
| and tragedy is at an all time high. They already addressed
| the death with "Noah's passing was sudden and very fast. He
| did not suffer". I think its fair to assume that if they
| wanted to share more, they would have, and otherwise thats
| all they want to put out publicly at the moment.
|
| When someone young dies, you can assume there is a higher
| level of tragedy and unexpectedness involved. And so in many
| ways its harder for loved ones to cope with. Its not really
| about not being allowed to ask, its about giving them time to
| grieve. And even then, imagine having to resurface the
| grieving just to satisfy morbid curiosity of strangers.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| I do agree that bugging the family about it is never
| appropriate
| newobj wrote:
| another ex-CMU classmate here. didn't know him well, but always
| struck me as a very kind and well-liked person. i suppose there's
| a reason i remember his name 30 years later. my condolences to
| his family + loved ones.
| stopachka wrote:
| In 2014 I was just learning how to program, and sent Noah a cold
| email with a question. He took the time to respond to me with an
| essay. He was kind and helpful. Rest in peace
| jamesgeck0 wrote:
| I met Noah at my first Ruby conference. I didn't know anyone, but
| he was very friendly and didn't seem to mind that I tagged along
| with him between sessions for a few hours.
|
| I thought he was just a nice guy; it wasn't until he took the
| stage and started presenting benchmark methodology that I
| realized how valuable his technical work was for the community,
| too.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| For some reason seeing a fellow developer pass always hits me
| hard, even if I didn't know them at all. Especially a fellow Ruby
| dev.
|
| There's that quiet voice that's always in the back of my head
| somewhere reminding me a little louder that we're all going to
| the same place eventually (some sooner than others).
|
| Part of me feels like the reminder should help me reduce the
| stress of the daily grind. The reminder that it doesn't _really_
| matter how good or bad my code is, or how frustrated I am at
| management, or how many deadlines I have. But it seems to have
| the opposite effect often: the stress remains, and then I have
| the extra tension of "but life is short, why can't I release
| this stress and enjoy the journey?!"
|
| Condolences to Noah's friends and family! He seems to have
| touched a lot of people's lives.
| solarmist wrote:
| Does anyone remember his username on hacker news?
| phgn wrote:
| On Safari 17:
|
| _Your browser is not supported. Please upgrade your browser to
| continue._
| asjo wrote:
| I got the same with Firefox 114 - so I used `M-x eww` in Emacs
| and read the page that way.
| aardvark179 wrote:
| I didn't work with him much, but every interaction I had with him
| was great. I'll miss him.
| begueradj wrote:
| His book "Rebuilding HTTP" is interesting
| (https://codefol.io/portfolio/#writing)
| truehaley wrote:
| What sad news to hear. I hope his family and loved ones are doing
| ok.
|
| We lost touch over the years, but I worked closely with Noah for
| a couple of years at Palm/PalmSource back in the early days of
| our careers. We shared a small office, dubbed the "habitrail",
| with two other engineers as we all worked away bringing the
| Expansion/VFS Managers to life on PalmOS.
|
| He was definitely one of my favorite coworkers, I loved talking
| to him about his random side projects, language theory,
| motorcycles, and any other number of other nerdy topics.
|
| I pretty much always think of him when I go out for out for
| sushi. Eating sushi was still pretty new to me at the time, and
| he once took me to a great restaurant in San Francisco. Besides
| sharing some very fresh raw clams, he also ordered this
| incredibly monstrous roll with a ton of avocado. The pieces were
| so large that I didn't really know what to do with it, but he
| shared with me his rule of "one sushi, one bite!" This may have
| been the most challenging piece of sushi I ever ate, but I
| managed to follow his rule. To this day I still love sharing the
| rule with my friends whenever a surprisingly large piece of sushi
| comes to our table, and I still try my best to always follow it!
| meter wrote:
| His book, Rebuilding Rails, had a huge impact on me, especially
| early in my career (when I started learning Rails). Such a great
| teacher. He encouraged me to be curious, dig deeply, and to
| understand my tools.
|
| Such a badass developer. And such a kind and genuine person.
|
| He'll always be one of my role models.
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(page generated 2025-01-03 23:00 UTC)