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...
Reading memories from the people Noah impacted in his life feels like a good way to understand the kind of person he was.
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.")
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.
(Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/1hmynb3/noah_gibbs_co...)
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).
(FWIW I perceived your comment as "natural curiousity" moreso than gawking, thanks to your respectful hedging.)
Furthermore, such questions can sometimes come across—or even be—blameful. For instance, asking 'What cancer did they die of?', 'Were they a smoker?', 'Were they obese?', or 'Did they work with chemicals?' might suggest judgment or responsibility, even if that’s not the intent. And as mentioned, sometimes it actually IS the intent (trying to find a way the person caused this on themselves), even if the person asking tries to cloak this, perhaps also to themselves. This can add unnecessary pain to those grieving.
I think not wanting to know unless the information is volunteered is also a natural human response.
I admit I wondered as well but I also know that most answers would be incomplete. So instead I watched a video of his. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPkJGU7Itb0
I refuse to adhere to this ridiculous idea.
I mean, I'm curious too. I think it's normal to be. But life goes on either way.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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!
Such a badass developer. And such a kind and genuine person.
He’ll always be one of my role models.
I remember reading his articles and seeing his name in the DGD community.
https://www.skotos.net/articles/neo.shtml.html https://noahgibbs.github.io/self_conscious_dgd/
RIP Noah