* Catalyst (web framework)
* DBIx::Class (ORM)
* Moo (object-oriented code)
I've read about his tough interactions with other people, and it does seem that, at times, he fell into the classic trap of loving his own ideas too much; but in our interactions (reviewing some of my code on a Perl project), he was really helpful and kind. Also amazingly quick. He read my beginner-level Perl code, instantly understood it, and instantly gave clear, concise feedback.
It's a shame he has passed.
As I said on irc:
He brought many people into the community, and encouraged their growth (like me)
I popped into the scene by sending a few Moose patches and then coming onto irc displaying an utter lack of understanding of anything
Matt set me straight, and encouraged me to send more patches and I ended up as the manager for Moose
and then inherited the ownership of literally hundreds (perhaps thousands by now) distributions
that work helped me move from being mediocre at my job to being stellar, and enabled me to move on to much better jobs
He used to wind up taking home every single girl I introduced him to. He and I met when he pulled my FWB at a club and our friendship long outlasted either of ours with the FWB.
He gave me career advice that I followed that set me on a path to the great happiness I now have.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Super smart kid, very nice to work with. I ended up supporting one of the systems he built (in Perl). I used his Cataylst Perl framework for some projects after that because of him.
https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=mst
Huge in the Perl world, he will be missed.
His oratory and presentation style is inimitable and he truly brought everyone up who worked with him, and even did his best to smooth over difficult personality conflicts on the p5p mailing list. He was instrumental in establishing a Standard of Conduct for contributing to Perl, as well. He was a staunch ally for the many he befriended and worked to bash through obstacles whether it had anything to do with his immediate obligations or no.
Fucking hell man. This hurts. Love you Matt.
Matt Trout (mst) was a very big deal in the Perl 5 community, although he was a deeply polarizing figure. He was a big contributor to many Modern Perl projects. I am personally very sad he's dead. I enjoyed the time I spent with him in person, and always found him personally supportive, encouraging, and helpful, although it would be remiss to not mention that a good section of other people found him a very difficult character on many levels.
He wasn't a particularly heavy HN user, but here he is: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mst
I spent over a decade in #perl on freenode/libera and saw so many abusive events that I eventually got tired of hanging out there, mostly due to him but in part also due to a handful of others displaying similar behavior. All the same I was always grateful for how tirelessly he spent so much of his personal time providing help, and I'm sad to learn of his passing.
I didn't much enjoy it when I was at the other end of it though, and sometimes he went too far. "Try to understand why the person doesn't understand" wasn't something he did enough -- sometimes the person doesn't know the right questions to ask, they just know that their thing doesn't work.
As a helper, it's hard to find the right balance, and I think the most important thing is that if you're getting emotional about it, step away and let someone else take the question. (I at least have been getting better at this over time.)
I'm sure Matt would have been happy to admit that he was that person. I'm sure he would have said that he had spoken his mind unvarnished, and maybe even that he thought he was right.
So what?
People say that a community will fall to the level of the most toxic person it will tolerate. For the Perl community, that was Matt.
I did not know him at all, have no opinion on him, and sincerely wish the best for those he left behind.
Rarely, in fact.
Thanks, Matt, the ripples will go on for a good while.
Another former colleague who is way more talented than I am emailed me privately to express a similar sentiment.
You'll find Matt's indirect influence in things like SQLAlchemy, and chunks of the enduring parts of the javascript ecosystem as well. He was known in the perl community, but his unparalleled thinking skills have a much wider indirect influence
> Perl is a wonderful language once you get over the fact that a slightly quirky set of syntax and embedded regular expressions have a tendency to make it look like line noise in the wrong light. Once you're used to it, it's a hell of an expressive dynamically typed language with a huge set of libraries and classes available for it.
It is beyond intellectually dishonest to not put this in context; you've linked elsewhere in this thread to Ovid's obituary, from which I'll quote:
> Third, he wasn’t a bigot. Far from it. He stood up for LGBQT+ rights. He didn’t care about your ethnicity, religion, or national origin. He was accused of philosemitic antisemitism[0], but while he admitted to me that he had hurt someone, he was bewildered by it. He thought he was making a joke; the person hearing it (someone else who I also respect) heard bigotry. For the record, I don’t think Matt was antisemitic, but I realize that this is such an emotionally-charged topic, that some will disagree.
> We offer proven expertise in development of networked systems and reliably automating manual processes from business workflow to systems and network management. Shadowcat is committed to Open Source technology and specialises in working with Open Source Software and open standards and protocols. Shadowcat also contributes back to the community with patches, scripts and occasionally full packages.
(oh, i see, it already got vouched twixt the main page and my comment)