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Comment by waffle_ss | Hacker News Reader

I was going to ask if any attempt was made to reach the book author for comment, but it looks like he died in 2007. RIP.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/29007415/robert-joseph-t...

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It appears that someone having read your comment here has left a horribly abusive comment on that memorial page now under the handle "Screw You Bob".

> ... The Hacker News army is here.

"Screw You Bob" you do not speak for me. Hopefully, you don't speak for many people on HN.

Words fail me. Can't we let the dead rest in peace?

I'm surprised there is no way to report one of those on the site.

There is a feedback form in the lower right and the email address.

Only yesterday, I read a comment by someone on HN in which he wished hacking should be punished with death penalty/jail term.

Fortunately that comment appears to be gone.

They certainly don't speak for me. In fact while I found this post interesting, and I like how the author tried to get into Traister's mindset to empathize with how he may have become misguided, I felt like it meandered into personal attacks a bit more than necessary.

Maybe I'm just sensitive because I have gotten excited about having learned something and rushed to share my knowledge, only to be cut off at the knees by the more august folks who told me I was in fact doing it wrong. :-)

But also, we've all written bad code, right? Have you ever written code that you've held your nose while writing, working under annoying idiosyncrasies of the problem domain / business requirements, and you just know at some point another developer is going to come along and read that code without having the full context of the situation, and think you're an idiot, and you won't be there to defend yourself?

While it's not quite the same situation that's the kind of empathy I'm feeling here. Who knows the circumstances that led to this book. The author of this blog post admits there was a dearth of material on learning C pointers at the time so I think Traister's heart was in the right place in trying to fill that gap, however misguided.

Damn, that's sad. I had a similar moment yesterday while thinking about Max Allen, the interviewer during that CBC show with Ted Nelson where they were talking about computers in 1979.

I wonder if these people ever got to know a bit about the things they didn't understand at the time. I also wonder if I'll ever get to know about the unknown unknowns in my life :)

What's also sad is some idiot went there from that link and left an abusive comment on his memorial website referencing Hacker News. Pretty pathetic, whoever did that.

I think I speak for all the developed brains on this website when I say that defacement is pathetic and weak, clearly coming from an impotent individual.

Rest in peace Mr. Traister, we love you even though C kinda thorned ya. :-)

Or as my mother taught me: "people who write in public places have stupid names and ugly faces."

RIP

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