Alex King, an original Wordpress developer, has died | Hacker News Reader

Alex King, an original Wordpress developer, has died

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339 pointsa5seo37 comments

Colon / bowel cancer has a relatively high success rate when treated (compared to other cancers), but as with all cancers, it is important to catch it early.

Not to be to graphic, but if you have blood in your stool (especially if it is dark red in colour rather than bright red), then you should take yourself immediately to the doctors and tell them. They can take a stool sample and if necessary, refer you for a colonoscopy.

You can be sedated for the colonscopy if you don't like the idea of being awake for it under a local. You normally get a dose of Propofol injected into you (like Michael Jackson) and you wake up feeling refreshed and slightly pissed off that the nurse dared to wake you up from your beautiful embracing slumber. The procedure really isn't as bad as you think it is going to be. The preparation for it is much worse (not painful, just unpleasant).

You will then know for certain whether or not you have a really nasty cancer problem, or just plain old piles. People with Ulcerative Collitis and Crohn's have a higher risk of bowel cancer, so it important that they get checked regularly (talk to your doctor).

Don't delay. It could cost you your life. Men are often the worst for procrastinating over such a decision.

Update - I don't want anyone to think that I'm am suggesting Alex delayed seeing a doctor btw. I just wanted to impart some general wisdom that might save someone else's life.

Also think about what you ate before panicking. Beets will color your stool as well.

Iron supplements will make stools black too. I almost fainted the first day I used them thinking the iron revealed something.

Definitely good to keep in mind. Although from my own personal experience, actual blood in my stool was much more dramatic and very obvious compared to beets. Blood tends to come out much darker than you would expect. Mine was also very bloody - so I knew it wasn't coloring from food. But I don't know how close my experience is to other's

And that doesn't mean that I don't have a mild panic attack the day after I have beets!

Just out of interest, is that the only sign of colon/bowel cancer? Will you always have blood in your stool at some point?

No, a young girl I met had only backpain. When they finally found the cause for it, after many visits to different doctors, which found nothing or diagnosed the wrong thing (e.g growing pain) she was already in stage 4 which is not treatable.

No, but having blood in your stool is generally a sign that you need to see a doctor. The father of a friend of mine kept putting it off because (in his words), "he was embarrassed to talk about the topic to his doctor".

He had to have a large amount of his lower colon removed and two rounds of chemo. Luckily he survived.

That's spot on. I've had a colonoscopy as a precaution after seeing blood in my poo (can't bring myself to use the word stool here). The preparation involves taking a very powerful laxative which cleans you out completely. You end up going to the toilet a lot passing what quickly becomes a clear liquid after a couple of trips. This goes on for hours and is unpleasant. But, hey, just unpleasant, nothing more.

The actual procedure does not take long (tens of minutes) and they gave you something to make you feel drowsy. I was fairly awake and enjoyed watching the inside of my body on the screen; others can just layback and do nothing.

On the upside the doctor wrote "Excellent bowel preparation" on my report afterwards so... Achievement Unlocked!

You must be British. Only a Brit could talk about poo like this.

Yes, I am.

It takes one to know one. :-)

Been there, literally. Can confirm the experience, although I didn't get any sedatives at all as some of them cause my blood pressure to drop rapidly. Actually I was just uncomfortable for the 10 minutes it took but it wasn't bad at all.

The worst part of it is getting home afterwards with the laxative side effects in recent memory. Also staring right at me was the sign in the taxi: "£20 soiling charge".

If you ever put this off a health check for fear of endoscopy, don't. It's really not that bad.

He was only 40 years old? That's extremely young for that disease. 50 is when they recommend your first colonoscopy. There is now a colonoscopy pillcam. Wonder if people should start in their 30's?

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/billofhealth/2014/03/04/capsule...

Seeing someone robbed of a few decades of life is always heart wrenching.

See "American College of Gastroenterology Guidelines for Colorectal Cancer Screening 2008" pages 3 and 4: http://s3.gi.org/physicians/guidelines/CCSJournalPublication...

Summary: Usually age 50, but age 45 if you're African American. If you have a family history of the disease, then maybe screening at age 40, or 10 years younger than age at diagnosis of the youngest affected relative. With positive genetic tests for certain cancers, screening age may be 20.

I'm not even 40 and have to get an annual colonoscopy (down from semi-annual) because of an "incident" a couple years ago. By the time my friends start having to schedule their first, I'll have had 14 or 15. But I don't think trying to get people (men in particular) to start screening earlier will help. Polyps can form and mean nothing and that could lead to a lot of unnecessary medical procedures.

I can't speak for Alex's situation, but doctors I have spoken to about mine seem to be keen on looking for genetic markers. That may be a better way to determine who should start screening earlier.

Yup, the prep is more certainly the worst part. I had to have a colonoscopy relatively recently (graphic details: suspected Crohn's, turned out I just had benign polyps), and without a doubt, consuming all that KleanPrep the day before was without a doubt one of the worst things I've ever had to do to my mouth and gut. Tried everything I could to mask the flavour, but nothing worked.

The most flattering description I can give to the flavour of KleanPrep is that it tastes like rancid cooking oil. And you have to drink a lot of it over the course of the day.

Still, the colonoscopy itself wasn't a problem at all. Aside from the discomfort of the idea of strangers fiddling with your nether regions, it's fine, and much better than the alternative of not knowing.

If you did cross paths with Alex King, please share your stories with his wife at heatherkingcom@gmail.com .

From http://alexking.org/blog/2015/08/24/rememberances

One of the things my wife and I are trying to do is put together some information about my career that will hopefully give my 6 year-old daughter a better sense of who I was as an adult. She knows me as “dad”, but when she gets older she’ll be curious about who I was to my peers and colleagues.

I’ve spent more than a decade in the WordPress community and I’d like to request that you to share a few thoughts or remembrances about me that we can compile and share with her when the time is right.

If we have crossed paths or if I have managed to do something that you found helpful, I’d love it if you would take a few minutes to write it down and send it to me or my wife: heatherkingcom@gmail.com. If you’re willing to have the story shared publicly, please indicate that accordingly. By default, we will keep everything confidential.

"that will hopefully give my 6 year-old daughter a better sense of who I was as an adult" ... :( heartbreaking

Yeah, reading that made me think alot about myself and my 6 month old daughter and what would happen if I died as young as my father did (he was 48, I am now 30)

He was a great person, a great developer and a great businessmen.

And fun piece of trivia, he invented the share icon http://alexking.org/project/share-icon

In the early 2000s Alex had an opensource project written in PHP. I was then learning PHP and used his project to learn how to build a web app end to end: auth, business logic, db interactions, views, etc. I was in my late teens, and using his project as a guide I built several products that people used and were keen to even pay for, learnt lots back then.

Thanks Alex!

Looks like Alex did great work and had a great family. That's a good life in my book. Too bad he didn't get more time.

As someone who got into web development, and thus my career, through the WordPress community, I was definitely aware of Alex and followed his work. I recall that he once mentioned using a plugin I wrote and that just shows how interconnected everything was back in those early, indie days.

RIP Alex King, and may we carry your torch by being creative in our work, astute in our enterprise, and cherished by our communities and families.

I remember often ending up on his blog when looking up various Wordpress and web development topics back in the 2000s. The about page (http://alexking.org/about) on his website reveals an exciting and accomplished career, no doubt he would have kept doing ever greater things. Rest in peace!

I hadn't kept up with Alex, but I do remember interacting with him and looking up to him while I was in college and even after. He was always so impressive.

While I always admired him, I'm even more in awe now. It takes someone really special and thoughtful to create the kind of lasting impression he has left on his site for his daughter, his wife, and his family and friends. You can get a taste here: http://alexking.org/blog/2015/08/24/rememberances

To all his friends and family, so sorry for your loss. Alex impacted so many people, many who will never know, but all of whom benefit from his far-reaching technical work and his community-building efforts.

This is going to sound heartless and for that I apologise. I am curious what happens with his copyrights on his opensource code now? Not many significant projects have suffered such loses yet.

Condolences to his family and friends if they ever read this.

I'd assume they just go to his estate unless he specifically specified otherwise.

I'd assume that his immediate descendants would respect his involvement in open source. Is there a risk (maybe in other cases) that inheritors of an estate can retrospectively change licenses on code for which they have inherited the copyright to? (Maybe I'm missing some understanding of software licenses though.)

IANAL and this is not legal advice. There is no risk in any event as the work was published under specific copyright terms and conditions.

Pretty much every free software license is irrevocable - if you make software available under that license, you can't retroactively remove those licensing terms later. This applies whether the copyright is owned by a person or corporation. It's a fundamental building block of the concept of free software - that once software becomes free, it cannot be made non-free again.

I'm not a lawyer and I'm not sure whether this has been tested in court, so I'd suggest further research on your own. There's some discussiof this on Groklaw - http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2006062204552163

Damn. I never met Alex, but was subscribed to his blog for several years. This makes me genuinely sad.

fuck cancer.

This is a huge loss. He was a great person and developer and it was so clear how much he loved his family. My thoughts are with the Kinf family and his friends.

I didn't know Alex personally, but I was a paying customer for his site FeedLounge back in the days before Google Reader came along. It was a great web-based RSS reader, and was the first web site I used that felt like a desktop app in terms of responsiveness.

I didn't really know him, just of him, but as someone only a couple of years older with three kids myself, this is heartbreaking to see. RIP, Alex.

How come we haven't heard he was sick!? Rest in piece, Alex!

God bless his soul.

http://phkillscancer.com/

https://www.metabunk.org/debunked-alkaline-diets-cure-cancer... but really, this is not the time nor place.

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