6 ms·

In Memoriam: Noah Gibbs

249 points by schwad 2y ago

begueradj 2y ago
His book "Rebuilding HTTP" is interesting (https://codefol.io/portfolio/#writing https://codefol.io/portfolio/#writing)
ernestipark 2y ago
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 2y ago
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 2y ago
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 rewrite. You don’t need to worry so much about getting it right the first time.”
ksec 2y ago
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/1FAIpQLSfQgRPWa7AjjfrOJKjgExKb-SEnOx6ojqTcJgzvWbEvuGBRfA/viewform https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfQgRPWa7AjjfrOJKjg... [2] https://old.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/1hmynb3/noah_gibbs_codefolio_has_passed_away/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/1hmynb3/noah_gibbs_co...
- solarmist 2y ago
  It appears that the stories shared are being posted to his Facebook account. https://www.facebook.com/share/1K49KzbZN7/ https://www.facebook.com/share/1K49KzbZN7/
  - olivierlacan 2y ago
    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 2y ago
  > 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 2y ago
    > 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 2y ago
      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_codefolio_has_passed_away/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/1hmynb3/noah_gibbs_co...)
newobj 2y ago
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 2y ago
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 2y ago
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 2y ago
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 2y ago
Does anyone remember his username on hacker news?
stevetron 2y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
phgn 2y ago
On Safari 17: Your browser is not supported. Please upgrade your browser to continue.
- asjo 2y ago
  I got the same with Firefox 114 - so I used `M-x eww` in Emacs and read the page that way.
- kvemkon 2y ago
  Both archive.org and archive.is were unable to archive the web page.
aardvark179 2y ago
I didn’t work with him much, but every interaction I had with him was great. I’ll miss him.
truehaley 2y ago
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 2y ago
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.
steviee 2y ago
I had the honor to meet him in Bangkok for Rubyconf TH in 2022. What an exceptionally bright mind! So very approach able and fun to talk to... So many words! Rest in peace, Noah!
uglygoblin 2y ago
I'm not in the Ruby community at all but the name seemed so familiar so I went digging. Noah worked with Skotos/DGD in the MUD community! I remember reading his articles and seeing his name in the DGD community. https://www.skotos.net/articles/neo.shtml.html https://www.skotos.net/articles/neo.shtml.html https://noahgibbs.github.io/self_conscious_dgd/ https://noahgibbs.github.io/self_conscious_dgd/ RIP Noah
melkerch 2y ago
I only knew Noah as a child where he grew up in Huntsville, TX. He came from a prominent and wealthy family there. He could have been a snob, but he was just the nicest, brightest, most polite and most humble kid. My son was a friend of his, and I knew him through the community’s music program. I am sorry to hear of his premature passing. Requiescat in pace, Noah.

249 points by schwad 2y ago

His book "Rebuilding HTTP" is interesting (https://codefol.io/portfolio/#writing https://codefol.io/portfolio/#writing)

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 2y ago

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 2y ago

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 rewrite. You don’t need to worry so much about getting it right the first time.”

ksec 2y ago

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/1FAIpQLSfQgRPWa7AjjfrOJKjgExKb-SEnOx6ojqTcJgzvWbEvuGBRfA/viewform https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfQgRPWa7AjjfrOJKjg... [2] https://old.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/1hmynb3/noah_gibbs_codefolio_has_passed_away/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/1hmynb3/noah_gibbs_co...

solarmist 2y ago
It appears that the stories shared are being posted to his Facebook account. https://www.facebook.com/share/1K49KzbZN7/ https://www.facebook.com/share/1K49KzbZN7/
- olivierlacan 2y ago
  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 2y ago
> 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 2y ago
  > 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 2y ago
    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_codefolio_has_passed_away/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/1hmynb3/noah_gibbs_co...)

newobj 2y ago

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 2y ago

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 2y ago

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 2y ago

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 2y ago

Does anyone remember his username on hacker news?

stevetron 2y ago

[flagged]

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

phgn 2y ago

On Safari 17: Your browser is not supported. Please upgrade your browser to continue.

asjo 2y ago
I got the same with Firefox 114 - so I used `M-x eww` in Emacs and read the page that way.
kvemkon 2y ago
Both archive.org and archive.is were unable to archive the web page.

aardvark179 2y ago

I didn’t work with him much, but every interaction I had with him was great. I’ll miss him.

truehaley 2y ago

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 2y ago

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.

steviee 2y ago

I had the honor to meet him in Bangkok for Rubyconf TH in 2022. What an exceptionally bright mind! So very approach able and fun to talk to... So many words! Rest in peace, Noah!

uglygoblin 2y ago

I'm not in the Ruby community at all but the name seemed so familiar so I went digging. Noah worked with Skotos/DGD in the MUD community! I remember reading his articles and seeing his name in the DGD community. https://www.skotos.net/articles/neo.shtml.html https://www.skotos.net/articles/neo.shtml.html https://noahgibbs.github.io/self_conscious_dgd/ https://noahgibbs.github.io/self_conscious_dgd/ RIP Noah

melkerch 2y ago

I only knew Noah as a child where he grew up in Huntsville, TX. He came from a prominent and wealthy family there. He could have been a snob, but he was just the nicest, brightest, most polite and most humble kid. My son was a friend of his, and I knew him through the community’s music program. I am sorry to hear of his premature passing. Requiescat in pace, Noah.