At the beginning of the year 2016, my first task when I was hired after college was to learn about ZeroMQ in order to use it in our software. I remember opening the ZeroMQ guide for the first time, and telling my british manager about how surprisingly fun it was. Pieter Hintjens, a belgium developer and CEO of iMatix was the founder of ZeroMQ and the author of this guide. He had definitely a great and unique style. That's severely uncommon in the world of software developers! A nerd that also knows how to communicate! ;)
Then, later in 2016 I bought his Psychopath Code which was awesome in many ways.
Around a year later, when I became interested in business models around FLOSS software, FLOSS licenses, and FLOSS communities, I started reading his blog where he talks extensively about these issues. He gave to humanity the brillant Collective Code Construction Contract (C4), which I will talk about further in this blog.
It was only at this moment when I discovered that Pieter had passed away from cancer at the young age of 53 this very same year of 2016...
At that point he had already become an inspiration for me. I realized how emotionally attached I was with this writer when I randomly read about his death on Twitter. I wish I had met him in person, maybe during one of the countless talks he made in various conferences.
Seriously, read him! He had a way to convey his opinions in a funny manner while always being straight to the point and staying down to earth. Unlike many, despite being an eminent developer, he actually did NOT only talk about the technical parts of software, but also about the business side and above all the community and the people around it - and especially all the psychological, philosophical, and social aspects of building softwares. You can feel that he understood people, had travelled a lot and read a lot. The man was also a polyglot and had been the president of the FFII.
While I don't always agree with his opinions, reading him was a turning point in my life. He made me love softwares. Literally. He made me find meanings in life as a software engineer.
That's why my own professional blog cannot start differently than by giving him all the credits he deserves.
Thank you Pieter.
N.B: the man had young kids when he passed away, buying his books will help supporting them.