Re: La communaut é Revolution est en deuil

[Mark Wieder]

I'm reeling. Having just come back from the memorial for another
friend, I find this. I keep waiting for someone to post a message
saying this has all been a mistake.

Like Scott, I mulled over whether I should try to go to the conference
in Malta, and one of the deciding factors for me was the chance to
meet Eric face to face, after having exchanged emails and carried on
conversations on this list for years. I can't add too much to Scott's
description of Eric, but I found him to be charming and animated and
brilliant with a wonderful joie de vivre.

Eric and I were collaborating on a series of articles on xtalk
programming practices. Eric and I thought quite a bit alike about
things technical, but fortunately different enough that I could always
count on learning something new from him. Late last year we were
talking about sorting a list of variables, and I bemoaned the fact
that I couldn't create a function that would group them thematically
rather than alphabetically. Eric immediately fired back an absolutely
brilliant function that did exactly what I wanted.

Unfortunately, our last email correspondence was a rather banal
exchange of new year's greetings, and then I got involved in MacWorld
and planning the memorial, thinking there's always more time.

Eric, I will miss sharing a bottle of wine with you. I will even miss
those damn cigarettes of yours. I will miss our electronic banter and
your dry jokes and your correcting my errors. I will miss the wealth
of your expertise and your generosity in sharing it.

Farewell, my friend.

-- 
-Mark Wieder
 mwieder at ahsoftware.net