Remembering Dave Sinkula

[happygeek]

OK, following on from the suggestion here I am now asking for your memories of Dave Sinkula which will be used to help create a kind of retrospective member of the month interview/memorial.

So fire away, and write as much or as little as you like. I'm really looking for those personal memories of what made Dave such a great person and valuable member of the DaniWeb community.

Let's C, what do I remember about Dave Sinkula?

I did a bit of digging...

A lot of people will remember the so called 'Golden Age' of C, Dave along with Prelude and Salem, were the revered trifecta of gurus that patrolled the cprogramming forums.

I will always remember Dave for his snippets. Writing c is frought with so many gotchas, if I was to ever write a c programme - I would always have his snippets open for reference.

I did't know him personally, and have only recently read the latter stages of his blog. Although he was an expert in the field of c and electrical engineering he was first and foremost a family man and I'm sure that is how he will be remembered by those most close to him.

[deceptikon]

Dave and I go way back, from cprogramming.com circa 2000 to flashdaddy (now entropysink, IIRC), and Daniweb. The banter and sharing of knowledge was top notch every time. :D I think my fondest memories were the many MSN Messenger chats we had about programming and whatever else came to mind.

There are a handful of people from these forums that I consider friends, and Dave remains number 1 on that list.

From a programming perspective, I was always amazed at his bit twiddling skills since that's something I had to think about yet he could bang out anything without breaking a sweat.

On all forums, I honestly don't remember Dave losing patience or failing to help someone thoroughly. Given that he was very active on cprog before coming to Daniweb, and the tradition of heavy snark there, his restraint was very impressive. Compare it with Narue or Salem, who never really gave up the snarky traditions of cprog when posting on Daniweb.

I distinctly remember his passing, as well as how hard it hit me. I think I completely lost interest in Daniweb for a good two or three weeks because of it. That might surprise some people since Dave and I never met face to face, but it's a testament to how real online friendships can be.

[~s.o.s~]

When I joined Daniweb, my main interest was in helping and learning C/C++ which meant a lot of interactions with the forum regulars which included Dave. I learnt a lot from him: not just about programming but also about how to help beginners push their boundaries and think about problems rather than rote learning. Dave is one of those few people whom I owe my current level-headed posting nature to.

He was always up for a political debate and very keen about Indian democracy. I remember exchanging PM's with him about the state of politics in India, Indian culture, the political issues etc.

He was a IRC regular and talked a lot about his family, work and a lot of other stuff. The fact that he never mentioned his illness to me or to anyone on IRC or forums proves how strong willed & thoughtful he was. Like most of the people here, I never met him in real life but would never forget the impact he had on his friends and in growing the forum.

Link to the original Dave Sinkula thread for those who really want to understand the kind of impact Dave had on this community.

[Dani]

I don't really have any super interesting stories that are worthy of making it into the newsletter. My fondest memory was the one and only phone conversation we had one evening.