Tributes

It is easy to complain. David entered this space with a lot of idealism. He added a lot of functions and features to TinyMUX 1.6. That both TinyMUSH 3.0 and TinyMUX 2.0 sprang from his work is a testament to his efforts. His name will always be associated with both. David and I easily mis-understand each other. Our styles are very different. My standard for code quality is perhaps too unreasonable for something that is free. David has lots of ideas and directions all percolating at the same time – a mercurial style, an experimenter. But, I sincerely wish David well in all his future endeavors. I regret that he and I met during a time when he was incredibly burned out and I was an unknown quantity.

Lydia is a master of words, and her posts are usually a joy to read and very easy on the eyes. Some of them were so skillfully crafted that in places where I would have preferred a concrete truth, she was happy with perhaps an ambiguous allusion to a truth. Beyond that, I have no problems with Lydia at all. I want Lydia to write my specs. She also knows her limits when it comes to code. Sometimes, a feature will ultimately reveal issues that could have been avoided, but in general, her vision is as good as anyone’s I’ve met.

Alierak is my kinda coder – a craftsman. I don’t remember off-hand how old he is, but his mind is young and flexible. I consider Alierak to best me in so many ways. The only area in which I consider myself advantaged over Alierak is in terms of professional experience. I want Alierak to code review all my code. I just don’t want to have’ta read any of his carefully-crafted E-mails. Man, those are some of the most noxious (and nearly-always correct) pieces of correspondence you will ever receive. There are other people who I think are better at breaking a compiled version, but Alierak is tops when it comes to reading the code. Find happiness, Alierak. Treat the people around you well.