11 ms·

Erik Naggum, R.I.P.

76 points by imgabe 17y ago

prodigal_erik 17y ago
Worth the read just for "even the best of us sometimes make stupid mistakes that it would be grossly unfair to believe were one's true nature". I would never have expected to hear that from Naggum.
timmorgan 17y ago
I don't know if this is a perfect representation of Erik's style, but his rant on XML is an enjoyable read: http://www.schnada.de/grapt/eriknaggum-xmlrant.html http://www.schnada.de/grapt/eriknaggum-xmlrant.html Edit: I posted this because I am mostly unfamiliar with the man's life and work, and enjoyed reading about him.
- mcav 17y ago
  It was posted recently (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=666611 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=666611). But sometimes a lot of XML rantiness isn't a bad thing. <grin>
gruseom 17y ago
Pitman is right: people are contradictory. In the Naggum thread the other day I criticized him for polarizing and ultimately damaging the Lisp community. What I didn't say is that I almost always enjoyed reading him, even at his most noxious. He was a master not only of Common Lisp but of English, the latter to a degree surprising in a non-native speaker (Norwegians routinely excel at it but he was over the top). And through reading him I became fond of him, something that by no means always happens. I'm not surprised to hear people say that he was a nice person. People are contradictory.
- kragen 17y ago
  I agree that people are contradictory and that Naggum was a master of CL and English.
  - gruseom 17y ago
    I've been reading various things about Naggum that have appeared in the last few days. It's changed my view of him. For example, I wouldn't write "consummate intellectual bully" to describe him anymore. He was more subtle than that (though his language was not) and had a kind of integrity that bullies don't. I hadn't read enough of him to grok this, but recent posts by his intelligent admirers caused me to take a deeper look. Truly a fascinating character. Online communication is a limited medium that is prone to feedback loops of escalating misunderstanding. It's easy to slip into thinking that one is talking to a computer rather than another human being because, in a way, one is. At that point, why bother with anything other than the intellectual satisfaction of formulating what you have to say in the sharpest, most absolute way possible? Many of us are prone to this. Naggum took it to an extreme. I still think there's something to criticize here, but perhaps not in terms like nasty, cruel, etc. It has more to do with dissociation (as when the cognitive apparatus becomes disconnected from emotional or other information). Which is another something many of us are prone to. One other point about Erik Naggum that deserves a little more attention than it's gotten: during much of the time he was writing this stuff he was suffering physically pretty badly. That's not an excuse, but it does change my picture of what was going on there.
alanthonyc 17y ago
A quote: "The purpose of human existence is to learn and to understand as much as we can of what came before us, so we can further the sum total of human knowledge in our life. " RIP
TweedHeads 17y ago
Wandering around Naggum's web site I wonder what will happen to his work when his domain expires? What will happen to our work when we die? Is there a place for people already gone where we can go and see their work as they left it when they died? Kind of a graveyard but without the creepiness? I would like to have access to all the work from [insert hacker name here], if he makes it available, or if he so wishes in his will. I wish my site would be up (not that I have one) forever for everybody to see, and read, and copy, and do stuff with whatever I left. Wishing somebody may finish whatever we left unfinished...
- hernan7 17y ago
  FWIW, I think Eric Raymond has some kind of "last will and testament" page on his website.
  - gjm11 17y ago
    http://www.catb.org/~esr/continuity.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/continuity.html
    - TweedHeads 17y ago
      "If I'm dead, move my pages to one of the Web mausoleums after a suitable period." Web mausoleums? any links?
      - kqr2 17y ago
        The Internet Archive perhaps? http://www.archive.org http://www.archive.org
  - amichail 17y ago
    Why would one care about such a thing? If you believe there is an afterlife, do you also believe that it is connected in some way to Earth complete with internet access?
- darshan 17y ago
jcl 17y ago
Collection of Naggum quotes: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=152312 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=152312
- staunch 17y ago
  "Some people are little more than herd animals, flocking together whenever the world becomes uncomfortable for any reason, seeking the comfort of those who agree with them, do not contradict them, and take care of their emotions. I am not one of those people. If I had a motto, it would probably be Herd thither, me hither." Truly great.
jganetsk 17y ago
Ulcerative colitis is a terrible disease. I could totally understand him being a very irritable guy.
andreyf 17y ago
I, for one, agree that the world is full of people, if not inherently stupid and frustrating, then acting stupid in a frustrating way. They're everywhere - teaching our kids in high schools, running our companies, writing the programs I rely on to work. They're people who have gotten better at "satisfying the practical aspects" (bullshitting their way through) instead of knowing what they're doing. From the little I got to read of his ideas, I hope Erik would have agreed, that with bullshitters, there is no appropriate discourse, and the only phrase that comes closest is "Fuck You".
anatoly 17y ago
I don't know a way of saying the following without looking like an asshole, considering the occasion. If you find yourself admiring Naggum's acerbic wit and online presence, that's fine. But please please look for ways to live your life so that when you die, the fact will be discovered not because some irc channel regulars notice your longer-than-usual absence. Please try very hard to arrange that there are people in your life who you love and who love you, and with whom you're in daily contact. People whose fondest memory of you will be as a spouse, a parent or an intimate friend, and not having been cursed by you to hell and back in flawless and elegant English. Many of us here can easily rationalize ourselves into writing a five-page missive on a technical topic that will utterly demolish the sack of shit our opponent is, at the same time making the merits of our cause blindingly obvious to anyone with a three-octal-digits IQ. Please balance the time investment for writing that five-page missive against the possibility of spending that time on your family, or, if you're single, and then it's vastly more important yet, on looking for a person of appropriate gender you'd really like to spend time with. Also, don't be the kind of person who's polite with others in face-to-face conversation, and then appallingly rude to the same person in email or online forums of any kind. You'll find it's easy to rationalize such behavior to yourself by appealing to lofty principles. Don't. The world is cold, and we'll all be dead in the long run. Please have someone to hug and be stupidly sentimental with, and share some happiness with. Thanks for listening, and sorry for being an asshole.
- akkartik 17y ago
  Para 2 seems to imply Naggum didn't have family or friends. I don't see any indication that that's true. (Perhaps just that his family and friends are taciturn online.) Otherwise, +1.
  - anatoly 17y ago
    One comment in the first reddit discussion about this explained that irc regulars became suspicious and asked his family to check up on him. http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8u5dp/erik_naggum_19652009_rip/c0afqzh http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8u5dp/erik_nagg... This doesn't say outright that his death was discovered due to his absence on irc, but strongly suggests so. It also suggests that he had some family but wasn't in daily contact with them.
ananthrk 17y ago
I posted this link earlier, but reading it again in this context makes more sense http://www.well.com/user/nocebo/ http://www.well.com/user/nocebo/

76 points by imgabe 17y ago

Worth the read just for "even the best of us sometimes make stupid mistakes that it would be grossly unfair to believe were one's true nature". I would never have expected to hear that from Naggum.

timmorgan 17y ago

I don't know if this is a perfect representation of Erik's style, but his rant on XML is an enjoyable read: http://www.schnada.de/grapt/eriknaggum-xmlrant.html http://www.schnada.de/grapt/eriknaggum-xmlrant.html Edit: I posted this because I am mostly unfamiliar with the man's life and work, and enjoyed reading about him.

mcav 17y ago
It was posted recently (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=666611 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=666611). But sometimes a lot of XML rantiness isn't a bad thing. <grin>

gruseom 17y ago

Pitman is right: people are contradictory. In the Naggum thread the other day I criticized him for polarizing and ultimately damaging the Lisp community. What I didn't say is that I almost always enjoyed reading him, even at his most noxious. He was a master not only of Common Lisp but of English, the latter to a degree surprising in a non-native speaker (Norwegians routinely excel at it but he was over the top). And through reading him I became fond of him, something that by no means always happens. I'm not surprised to hear people say that he was a nice person. People are contradictory.

kragen 17y ago
I agree that people are contradictory and that Naggum was a master of CL and English.
- gruseom 17y ago
  I've been reading various things about Naggum that have appeared in the last few days. It's changed my view of him. For example, I wouldn't write "consummate intellectual bully" to describe him anymore. He was more subtle than that (though his language was not) and had a kind of integrity that bullies don't. I hadn't read enough of him to grok this, but recent posts by his intelligent admirers caused me to take a deeper look. Truly a fascinating character. Online communication is a limited medium that is prone to feedback loops of escalating misunderstanding. It's easy to slip into thinking that one is talking to a computer rather than another human being because, in a way, one is. At that point, why bother with anything other than the intellectual satisfaction of formulating what you have to say in the sharpest, most absolute way possible? Many of us are prone to this. Naggum took it to an extreme. I still think there's something to criticize here, but perhaps not in terms like nasty, cruel, etc. It has more to do with dissociation (as when the cognitive apparatus becomes disconnected from emotional or other information). Which is another something many of us are prone to. One other point about Erik Naggum that deserves a little more attention than it's gotten: during much of the time he was writing this stuff he was suffering physically pretty badly. That's not an excuse, but it does change my picture of what was going on there.

alanthonyc 17y ago

A quote: "The purpose of human existence is to learn and to understand as much as we can of what came before us, so we can further the sum total of human knowledge in our life. " RIP

TweedHeads 17y ago

Wandering around Naggum's web site I wonder what will happen to his work when his domain expires? What will happen to our work when we die? Is there a place for people already gone where we can go and see their work as they left it when they died? Kind of a graveyard but without the creepiness? I would like to have access to all the work from [insert hacker name here], if he makes it available, or if he so wishes in his will. I wish my site would be up (not that I have one) forever for everybody to see, and read, and copy, and do stuff with whatever I left. Wishing somebody may finish whatever we left unfinished...

hernan7 17y ago
FWIW, I think Eric Raymond has some kind of "last will and testament" page on his website.
- gjm11 17y ago
  http://www.catb.org/~esr/continuity.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/continuity.html
  - TweedHeads 17y ago
    "If I'm dead, move my pages to one of the Web mausoleums after a suitable period." Web mausoleums? any links?
    - kqr2 17y ago
      The Internet Archive perhaps? http://www.archive.org http://www.archive.org
- amichail 17y ago
  Why would one care about such a thing? If you believe there is an afterlife, do you also believe that it is connected in some way to Earth complete with internet access?
darshan 17y ago

jcl 17y ago

Collection of Naggum quotes: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=152312 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=152312

staunch 17y ago
"Some people are little more than herd animals, flocking together whenever the world becomes uncomfortable for any reason, seeking the comfort of those who agree with them, do not contradict them, and take care of their emotions. I am not one of those people. If I had a motto, it would probably be Herd thither, me hither." Truly great.

jganetsk 17y ago

Ulcerative colitis is a terrible disease. I could totally understand him being a very irritable guy.

andreyf 17y ago

I, for one, agree that the world is full of people, if not inherently stupid and frustrating, then acting stupid in a frustrating way. They're everywhere - teaching our kids in high schools, running our companies, writing the programs I rely on to work. They're people who have gotten better at "satisfying the practical aspects" (bullshitting their way through) instead of knowing what they're doing. From the little I got to read of his ideas, I hope Erik would have agreed, that with bullshitters, there is no appropriate discourse, and the only phrase that comes closest is "Fuck You".

anatoly 17y ago

I don't know a way of saying the following without looking like an asshole, considering the occasion. If you find yourself admiring Naggum's acerbic wit and online presence, that's fine. But please please look for ways to live your life so that when you die, the fact will be discovered not because some irc channel regulars notice your longer-than-usual absence. Please try very hard to arrange that there are people in your life who you love and who love you, and with whom you're in daily contact. People whose fondest memory of you will be as a spouse, a parent or an intimate friend, and not having been cursed by you to hell and back in flawless and elegant English. Many of us here can easily rationalize ourselves into writing a five-page missive on a technical topic that will utterly demolish the sack of shit our opponent is, at the same time making the merits of our cause blindingly obvious to anyone with a three-octal-digits IQ. Please balance the time investment for writing that five-page missive against the possibility of spending that time on your family, or, if you're single, and then it's vastly more important yet, on looking for a person of appropriate gender you'd really like to spend time with. Also, don't be the kind of person who's polite with others in face-to-face conversation, and then appallingly rude to the same person in email or online forums of any kind. You'll find it's easy to rationalize such behavior to yourself by appealing to lofty principles. Don't. The world is cold, and we'll all be dead in the long run. Please have someone to hug and be stupidly sentimental with, and share some happiness with. Thanks for listening, and sorry for being an asshole.

akkartik 17y ago
Para 2 seems to imply Naggum didn't have family or friends. I don't see any indication that that's true. (Perhaps just that his family and friends are taciturn online.) Otherwise, +1.
- anatoly 17y ago
  One comment in the first reddit discussion about this explained that irc regulars became suspicious and asked his family to check up on him. http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8u5dp/erik_naggum_19652009_rip/c0afqzh http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8u5dp/erik_nagg... This doesn't say outright that his death was discovered due to his absence on irc, but strongly suggests so. It also suggests that he had some family but wasn't in daily contact with them.

ananthrk 17y ago

I posted this link earlier, but reading it again in this context makes more sense http://www.well.com/user/nocebo/ http://www.well.com/user/nocebo/