In Memoriam: Noah Gibbs | Hacker News Reader

In Memoriam: Noah Gibbs

blog.schwad.org

249 pointsschwad38 comments

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.

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.

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!

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.”

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://noahgibbs.github.io/self_conscious_dgd/

RIP Noah

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Does anyone remember his username on hacker news?

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!

I didn't know him well, but I interacted with him a few times. I liked him, and I enjoyed his book Rebuilding Rails.

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

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/1FAIpQLSfQgRPWa7AjjfrOJKjg...

[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/1hmynb3/noah_gibbs_co...

> 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.")

Well its been less than a week that the persons husband/father passed away unexpectedly. The sense of loss and tragedy is at an all time high. They already addressed the death with "Noah's passing was sudden and very fast. He did not suffer". I think its fair to assume that if they wanted to share more, they would have, and otherwise thats all they want to put out publicly at the moment.

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 do agree that bugging the family about it is never appropriate

> 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.

Which is unfortunate, because all keeping it secret can do is lead to a lack of respect. We will all stand around and wonder, and whisper. There might even be rumors of suicide, when it was something completely unrelated.

I refuse to adhere to this ridiculous idea.

I don‘t speak for Noah’s family but can share from my experience.

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.

I consider almost all deaths of people I don't know personally as a Schrödinger's box of possibilities. There's usually no need to collapse them. Except in cases where it's obvious, such as extreme sport accidents, there's no way to know for sure. Even terminal patients could resort to assisted suicide, which is ambiguous; is that suicide, or dying from the disease? A cause of death stated by relatives could even be an outright lie.

"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.

If your relatives believe so, they can choose to share the cause of death. But at the same time, if they choose not to, I think we should respect that.

I mean, I'm curious too. I think it's normal to be. But life goes on either way.

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_co...)

Yeah, that makes sense. I think it's always right for family's to choose not to share details, and I don't think it's ever appropriate for people to bug them for details.

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).

I don't think it's the wondering people are turned off by, it's the wondering out loud. I'd imagine everybody wonders. I have no opinion, but people (around the globe) seem to feel strongly about this.

I think it’s very human to be curious about the cause, but it can also be inappropriate, though some ways are more harmful than others. I've seen people ask very direct questions where it seemed their real interest was to assess whether the cause posed a risk to themselves or was something they could avoid. While this reaction is natural, it is also prioritizing personal concerns over the needs of those grieving, who don't have the possibility of changing the circumstances.

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.

It's generally considered rude to gawk at other peoples' suffering, even if it is a normal and empathizable reaction. I think this gets even more acute the closer to the suffering the action gets. I doubt many people would be surprised that people are curious about what happened, though.

(FWIW I perceived your comment as "natural curiousity" moreso than gawking, thanks to your respectful hedging.)

> I feel that's a natural human response

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

It's an awkward position to be in for the family of the deceased. They're already going through enough by griefing; if they'd rather not share, but are still constantly pestered about it by strangers, it's certainly not helping.

Privacy is a right of the living, not the dead.

The family still lives.

It appears that the stories shared are being posted to his Facebook account.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1K49KzbZN7/

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.

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I got the same with Firefox 114 - so I used `M-x eww` in Emacs and read the page that way.

Both archive.org and archive.is were unable to archive the web page.

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