SGML: Memory of Yuri Rubinsky (1952-1996)

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From: Sandy Ressler <sressler@nist.gov>
Newsgroups: comp.text.sgml
Subject: Re: Yuri Rubinsky
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 11:15:10 -0500
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The cold feel of email got a little colder last week with the
news of Yuri's passing. I've know Yuri probably for some 8ish years.
Can't remember exactly where me met, I think at SGML 88 or 90  
conference.  
I eventually got him involved with the product data community the
"STEP" world and although I've left that domain he continued, making
many significant contributions. As Tim Bray wrote he always managed
to get work accomplished without cutting a throat, stab a back or
crush an ego. In the often pseudo political landscape of technical
standards and high-tech products Yuri was opionated yet never dogmatic.
He was also simply smart, he could take complex ideas and present
them in clear articulate ways.

Over the years we've had a warm relationship perhaps the
closest when he was most generous with his time at reviewing some
chapters for a book I wrote about three years ago. I hadn't talked
with him for about a year or so when only about a month ago I asked
him to write a forward for another book I'm working on. He generously
agreed and only a couple of weeks ago I was trying to get in touch
with him for some random question of mine and I eventually left
a phone message for him to which he had someone else at SoftQuad
mailed me some information. I figured I would catch him eventually.

It felt good to be back in touch with him, he was always a "mench", a
nice guy. I received the package yesterday and it felt kind of
hollow...He will be sorely missed.

Sandy Ressler