Earlier this week I received a phone call with tragic news: David Ryder had passed away on Monday, Feb 4th, 2013.
David was a visible and energetic member of the Adhearsion community, having presented at both the 2011 and 2012 AdhearsionConfs as well as contributing lots of testing, feedback, pull requests, documentation fixes, and more to the Adhearsion platform. What makes this news even harder for us at Mojo Lingo is that David had accepted our offer of employment just days earlier, and was scheduled to be in Atlanta in less than two weeks. We were all very impressed by David and excited to have his skills and easygoing humor join our small team.
As a memorial to his legacy, I've included the video from his presentation at AdhearsionConf 2012. In addition to infusing his creative and genuine style throughout the presentation, he talks a lot about how he improved his skills through applied practice in Ruby, and how important the process of continual improvement is to being a good developer. Perhaps David was providing us more than a lesson for development, and we are grateful he shared it with us.
Lessons Learned from 1.x to 2.x - David Ryder from Adhearsion Foundation, Inc. on Vimeo.
The Adhearsion community has lost a great resource and a great friend. Our hearts and prayers go to his family, especially his wife and very young son, at this most difficult time.