{ "metadata": { "name": "130629-In-memoriam-JohnHunter" }, "nbformat": 3, "nbformat_minor": 0, "worksheets": [ { "cells": [ { "cell_type": "heading", "level": 1, "metadata": {}, "source": [ "In Memoriam, John D. Hunter III: 1968-2012" ] }, { "cell_type": "markdown", "metadata": {}, "source": [ "I just returned from the SciPy 2013 conference, whose organizers kindly invited me to deliver a [keynote](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9YpkSX7NNM). For me this was a particularly difficult, yet meaningful edition of SciPy, my favorite conference. It was only a year ago that John Hunter, creator of [matplotlib](http://matplotlib.org), had [delivered his keynote](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3lTby5RI54) shortly before being diagnosed with terminal colon cancer, from which [he passed away on August 28, 2012](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/pydata/FpwXp3sX6N8/mxopkZ1PkBQJ) (if you haven't seen his talk, I strongly recommend it for its insights into scientific open source work).\n", "\n", "On October 1st 2012, a memorial service was held at the University of Chicago's Rockefeller Chapel, the location of his PhD graduation. On that occasion I read a brief eulogy, but for obvious reasons only a few members from the SciPy community were able to attend. At this year's SciPy conference, Michael Droetboom (the new project leader for matplotlib) organized the first edition of the [John Hunter Excellence in Plotting Contest](http://conference.scipy.org/scipy2013/john_hunter_plotting_contest.php), and before the awards ceremony I read a slightly edited version of the text I had delivered in Chicago (you can see the [video here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nMORREkkWU)). I only made a few changes for brevity and to better suit the audience of the SciPy conference. I am reproducing it below.\n", "\n", "I also went through my photo albums and [found images I had of John](https://plus.google.com/photos/105051551851350439748/albums/5786518163145634545). A [memorial fund](http://numfocus.org/johnhunter) has been established in his honor to help with the education of his three daughers Clara, Ava and Rahel.\n", "\n", "