Skip to main content

Speedie Memories:: Rest in Peace, Drew and Brent --

A variety of memories of Drew and Brent have been filling the web the past few days.

I often think of Drew when I think of frameworks and approaches, not just because of MaxFrame but because he had a great way of completely disagreeing with someone without making it personal - instead he made it humourous.

I remember he joked about possibly being put on a "do not invite" list for an Advisor conference after making negative comments about the Fox team's updates for the grid. His actual sessions were always packed with both attendees and information, and he was always there at other sessions, showing how much he was willing to give and still willing to learn more from others.

I appreciated so much when he would come into one of my sessions and participate through questions and comments, envigorating a room. It amazed me that even when at the back of a room, writing notes for his next session or supporting other users on new features in FoxPro, he was always aware of what was going on and participated.

And by his side, almost always, was Brent, watching, learning, coding and with them both, just as often, Irene. I first met him at the International Database Interchange in 1993 and looked forward to seeing them at every conference I attended.

Anyone who met Drew knew almost instinctively, he was more than just a great speaker and amazing developer, who loved his work, he was a great father, husband, and human being, who loved life.

Tamar marked a valuable sentiment in her tribute that I share wholeheartedly:
Drew has been one of the cornerstones of the FoxPro community for more than a decade. His family has been part of our family. It's hard to imagine our little corner of the world without Drew and Brent.

I am a richer person for having known them and send my deepest sympathies to Irene and his entire family.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Blogs and RSS come to Microsoft.com

MS has just introduced their portal and it's pretty comprehensive. Nothing quite like learning that some people use AIM instead of MSN messenger, or that there really may be a need for supporting 4 monitors ( Cyrus Complains ) However, it's really a great sign that MS is serious about supporting the blogging community which seems to have um, exploded in size in the past year. Blogs and RSS come to Microsoft.com

Elevating Project Specifications with Three Insightful ChatGPT Prompts

For developers and testers, ChatGPT, the freely accessible tool from OpenAI, is game-changing. If you want to learn a new programming language, ask for samples or have it convert your existing code. This can be done in Visual Studio Code (using GitHub CoPilot) or directly in the ChatGPT app or web site.  If you’re a tester, ChatGPT can write a test spec or actual test code (if you use Jest or Cypress) based on existing code, copied and pasted into the input area. But ChatGPT can be of huge value for analysts (whether system or business) who need to validate their needs. There’s often a disconnect between developers and analysts. Analysts complain that developers don’t build what they asked for or ask too many questions. Developers complain that analysts haven’t thought of obvious things. In these situations, ChatGPT can be a great intermediary. At its worst, it forces you to think about and then discount obvious issues. At best, it clarifies the needs into documented requirements. ...

Programmers vs. Developers vs. Architects

I received an email this morning from Brandon Savage 's newsletter. Brandon's a PHP guru (works at Mozilla) but his newsletter and books have some great overall perspectives for developers of all languages. However, this last one (What's the difference between developers and architects?) kind of rubs me the wrong way. Either that, or I've just missed the natural inflation of job descriptions. (maybe, it's like the change in terminology between Garbage man and Waste Engineer or Secretary and Office Administrator) So maybe it's just me - but I think there's still a big difference between Programmer, Developer and then of course, architect. The key thing here is that every role has a different perspective and every one of those perspectives has value. The original MSF create roles like Product Manager, Program Manager, Developer, Tester, etc - so every concept may pigeon hole people into different roles. But the statements Brandon makes are often distinction...