As I said on the condolences page, John Tiller had a profound impact on my life. As a high school student I participated in a summer study program at a local c

As I said on the condolences page, John Tiller had a profound impact on my life. As a high school student I participated in a summer study program at a local college where John was an instructor. He provided a whirlwind review of programming languages and gave us assignments in each. I can only say that the lightbulb came on - the notion that there could be so many languages, with so many different affordances,so many ways of expressing problems, fascinated me then and continues to this day. I spent years afterwards trying to track down John until a chance posting on HN led me to John Tiller Software, and an opportunity to thank him. My wife asked me this morning how was it that he had such an impact in so short a time, and I can only say that he taught me what It was that I wanted to learn and set me on a path of discovery.