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Original Post: In Fond Memory of Our Friend, Felipe Gaúcho
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By now, probably many people in the java.net community are aware that we have -- completely unexpectedly, and out of the blue -- lost one of the most enthusiastic, bright, and kind members of the java.net community: Felipe Gaúcho. Clearly, there are many people in our community who knew Felipe better than I did; and clearly there are many who never had any personal contact with him, but who read his blogs and articles; and there are undoubtedly many people who are reading this who have no idea who Felipe was.
I will tell you a little story. Because, indeed, my contact with Felipe was minimal. Yet, those brief contacts made an enduring impression on me. Such that, when I came home late Saturday night, turned on my computer, brought up my email client, and saw 9 messages on the java.net Community Leaders list, titled "Sad news", and clicked on the first message from Fabiane Bizinella Nardon, and read:
Felipe Gaucho, our colleague, JUG leader, Java evangelist and long time java.net collaborator passed away yesterday. Sad day for the Java community and all his friends.
I ... time stopped for a moment. I had to reread the message to see if what I thought I had just read was actually stated there. Maybe it was just late and I was tired, and I hadn't read the words right?
You see... if you never met Felipe... Felipe Gaúcho was that kind of person, who makes an impression immediately, as someone you know you are happy you know, someone you know you can trust as a friend, someone who wants to be your friend, someone who has good objectives, who is forward looking, who wants to make the world a better place, and help the next generation see what's been prepared for them, so they can continue the work of making the world better and better.
To accomplish these objectives, Felipe applied his creativity. He was immensely interested in encouraging interaction between university students, who knew how to study coursework and pass their tests, and professionals in the software engineering, who knew how those basic skills had to be applied in a real-world business situation.
an academic competition to promote the synergy between the academy goals and the market needs. The prize stimulates the students to submit their homework projects to analysis by IT experts - senior professionals who will evaluate the quality and the market adequateness of what the students are coding (the homeworks) in the local universities.
While my entrance into my position as java.net editor last April was well-supported by Sun and O'Reilly, Felipe was one of the first people in the broader java.net community to really engage with me. He helped me get started, by proposing and writing an article, Exposing Domain Models through the RESTful Service Interface, Part 1. This was supposed to be a two-part article, with both parts completed prior to JavaOne. The completion of Part 2 was OBE (overcome by events), something we laughed about as we stood face to face for the first time at JavaOne 2009. We laughed because we shared an understanding that there are many good and worthy things we'd like to accomplish in life, but time sets limits. And, we mere humans cannot determine which specific objectives will be accomplished, and which ones (like Part 2 of that article series) will never come to be.
You see... even though I only spoke briefly with Felipe, at JavaOne, but also through many emails... and I also knew him through his java.net blog posts... it is very easy for me to understand what people who knew him much longer than I knew him are saying. Because he made the same impression on me, in our very brief friendship. I so vividly remember him walking up to me at JavaOne, smiling, his hand extended, welcoming me, expressing happiness at meeting me in person, in counting me among his friends. He is that kind of person! You don't forget him once you know him, even if you know him only briefly.
Felipe Gaúcho made everyone feel like they are important, like their contribution was really significant. And you had to believe him as he said it. How can someone do that?
I'll close with some links. Felipe was passionate about his work:
It's inconceivable. Late Thursday night, I saw that blog post, thought "cool.. wow, Felipe is really getting into GlassFish these days. As always, he wants to teach us as he proceeds -- with his customary enthusiasm!" Very early Friday AM Felipe's time, I featured that post on the front page of java.net. All was normal.
But Friday, March 5, 2010, was not a normal day. I found that out Saturday night when I read Fabiane's message to the java.net Community Leaders.
I apologize if some of you find this blog post annoying. But for those who knew Felipe Gaúcho even slightly -- we all know the world has lost an incredibly kind, creative, enthusiastic, energetic, welcomingly friendly human being. Who could not be Felipe's friend, having met him?
When he wasn't coding, Felipe preferred to listen to reggae music and "travel around with his lovely wife Alena and his son Rodrigo" (from Felipe's java.net bio). If anyone knows of a fund that is being set up to assist Alena and Rodrigo, please post it here. I want to contribute, myself...
How can I write about such a delicate subject? How can I find strength and inspiration in a hard moment like this one? I would summarize this post in only one word: speechless, but the absence of words may let my thoughts and emotions incomplete. So, I decided to write as the words come to my mind, and they are not easy. I've lost a very dear friend last Friday (March 5th, 2010). His name is Felipe Gaúcho...
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Our Spotlight this week is the work of our friend Felipe Gaúcho, who suddenly passed away on Friday, March 5. Felipe was a CEJUG founder and leader, a Java evangelist, and a long-time java.net collaborator. The self-description he wrote for java.net: "Felipe Gaúcho works as senior software engineer at Netcetera AG in Switzerland. He is a well known Brazilian JUG leader and open-source evangelist. Felipe works with Java since its early versions and has plans to keep that Java tradition as it is. When he is not coding, he prefers to listen reggae and travel around with his lovely wife Alena and his son Rodrigo."
We just published a new java.net Feature Article, Dibyendu Roy's Rethinking Multi-Threaded Design Principles; in the emerging multicore/multiprocessor world, multi-threaded programming is critical, in my view. We're also featuring Has JDBC Kept up with Enterprise Requirements? by Jesse Davis; in the article, Jesse invites us to look beyond Type 4 architecture to address the latest requirements of the enterprise Java ecosystem. And, Adhir Mehta's Java Tech article, Web Service Simulatino Using Servlets also remains in the Featured Articles section of the java.net home page.
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