Console.mihai();

http://incompleteness.me/blog/2015/02/09/console-dot-mihai/

by julien • 11 years ago

1445 50 11 years ago

eblume• 11 years ago

Thanks for the touching post - it's always good to hear these human stories about the people who write the software we use every day.

I have a question though - the post does not mention Mihai having passed away but has a mournful tone. A commenter on the blog post said 'rest in peace'. Is Mihai retiring from development due to illness, or has he indeed passed away?

teraflop• 11 years ago

The blog post was written in February; according to a post on the Mozilla developer-tools mailing list, he died a few days ago.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.develope...

Killswitch• 11 years ago

Judging by his site it looks like he may have passed, if not left because of the possibly of passing. :( http://mihai.sucan.ro/mihai/blog

nextos• 11 years ago

I think he had a metastasized cancer derived from his condition :(

pyre• 11 years ago

Don't know if it was just added, but there's an update at the top of the post now.

bryanlarsen• 11 years ago

For those of you watching hockey recently, that's the same disease that Jonathon Pitre has, the kid who has become an honorary scout for the Ottawa Senators.

aaront• 11 years ago

Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuYxGtuBSgk

leaveyou• 11 years ago

Wow, just wow. No words. Life can be so incredibly hard for some people..

alanpage• 11 years ago

Wow. Mihai's story is at once humbling and inspiring.

As a web developer who has used the fruits of his hard work in Firefox, I will remember him when I think that my job or life is difficult. I really have nothing to complain about.

staunch• 11 years ago

Thank you for the great work, Mihai!

It will be a beautiful time when people don't have to suffer like this. Medical technology can't advance quickly enough.

http://ebresearch.org/

_lce0• 11 years ago

this is a great human story

they should add `console.mihai()` ala easter egg, and proud recognition

gjtorikian• 11 years ago

It is in Firefox.

campd2• 11 years ago

This is a thing, on Firefox Nightly or Developer Edition.

cristianbica• 11 years ago

http://hg.mozilla.org/integration/fx-team/rev/fdcb26aac28c

nchelluri2• 11 years ago

Just ran it in my console. That's really cool.

joewalker• 11 years ago

I'm the author of the blog post. I've updated it to add that Mihai died recently.

nchelluri2• 11 years ago

I made a small donation, and I wanted to say thank you to everyone involved.

Some years ago I stopped using Firebug. I made a brief jump to Chrome but somehow I felt more at home in Firefox, and now I no longer needed FB to do my job.

Pretty much every single workday I have entered something or other into the console. I hop around Alt-Apple-K/Apple-Shift-I/etc. I inspect my elements. I loved it when recently an event listener list popped into the DOM view. I have followed your checkboxes and your changes and it has by and large been very much for the good.

Free software makes me feel good. Mozilla Firefox is one of my favorite pieces of software and I develop against it and use it and make a living with it. Kudos.

Stratoscope• 11 years ago

A friend of a friend has this disease. It was shocking the first time we met. She has to be covered from head to toe to help avoid injury from bumping into things. Her voice is hoarse and raw. Her fingers have worn off, down to mere nubs.

But she gets around without too much assistance. She feeds herself, using what's left of her fingers. And she doesn't complain.

When I feel sorry for myself because not everything in my life has gone the way I hoped it might, I think of her and realize I really have it pretty easy.

pcwalton• 11 years ago

I worked with Mihai (remotely) on the developer tools team when I first joined Mozilla about five years ago. He was one of the most incredibly passionate developers I've ever had the pleasure of working with, and he had an enormous impact on the quality of the developer tools in Firefox. If you've ever used the developer tools, chances are you've interacted with his code; he had a front and center role in the console and was one of the key reasons why Firefox developer tools went from zero to world-class in just a few short years.

This is a very sad moment for everyone. Thanks for everything you did, Mihai.

cbaleanu• 11 years ago

This is very sad, I was born in a different city in the same country and I remember how proud we felt about 5 yeears ago when we learnt that dev tools were being worked on by a fellow Romanian.

This article[0] is so sad it made me cry. I just cannot imagine having this kind of serenity in the face of imminent death.

RIP

http://mihai.sucan.ro/mihai/blog/touched

rufugee• 11 years ago

Certainly makes my petty daily concerns seem infinitesimally small. Thanks for linking to that.

ChristianBach• 11 years ago

Wow I had no idea. What a guy. May he rest in peace.

spaceguerrilla• 11 years ago

very sad indeed

BinaryIdiot2• 11 years ago

That's was touching. After reading I checked Firefox to see if console.mihai(); was indeed a method but it is not. Perhaps a small easter egg could be added so it becomes a method as a little tribute since he worked so much on making it better?

Bognar• 11 years ago

It's there on Nightly:

    console.mihai()
    > "http://incompleteness.me/blog/2015/02/09/console-dot-mihai/"

Systemic33• 11 years ago

Confirmed to be on 37.0.2 as well (Regular)

BinaryIdiot2• 11 years ago

Ah that makes sense; thanks!

campd2• 11 years ago

console.mihai() is in at least Nightly and Developer Edition so far.

It doesn't tab complete, and it's not available from content. Mihai didn't like too much attention ;)

faragon• 11 years ago

Thank you, Mihai.

aerovistae• 11 years ago

I've been developing a free chrome extension called Hands Free for Chrome that lets you navigate Chrome using just your voice; that idea was that people with conditions like Mihai's would use it to more easily interact with the web.

However, only about 500 people use it despite that there are far more than that who could find a use for it. I'm not sure how to make it more known and get it into more people's hands. If anyone has any advice, please email me at [redacted].

Reading articles like this just really reminds me how important accessibility tools can be for some individuals.

jacquesm• 11 years ago

link:

http://www.handsfreechrome.com/

noir_lord2• 11 years ago

Contact charities and organizations that deal with groups that have people with such impairments, they mostly all have websites and newsletters.

I have syringomyelia which depending on location and severity can cause paralysis so they'd be a natural start you can find US orgs here

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/syringomyelia/org_syringo...

British ones (I'm British) here.

http://www.annconroytrust.org/what-we-do/education/british-s...

A quick friendly email and a link would probably do it, these days such groups are heavily connected internally and stuff goes around really quickly.

samdk• 11 years ago

Have you tried contacting the Gnome Accessibility folks? (https://wiki.gnome.org/Accessibility/)

It's not exactly on-topic for them, but I bet you'll find some people there with ideas/contacts.

SoftwareMaven• 11 years ago

Facebook and Reddit both have large communities of people centered around various illnesses and disabilities. Introducing yourself to groups like that (being genuine and engaged; not just a drive-by) can be a great way to get the word out.

michaelmcmillan• 11 years ago

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-aurora/rev/74827b8f6...

twic• 11 years ago

Over a decade ago, i worked in a lab that was trying to develop a gene therapy for DEB. It's particularly tough, because you need to replace the collagen VII gene, which is pretty big:

http://www.omim.org/entry/120120

That lab doesn't seem to have published anything since i left, but the broader project is still slowly grinding forward:

http://www.genegraft.eu/

jaytaylor• 11 years ago

My mom is an RN at Lucille Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford (LPCH) and she's been working with kids who have EB and other rare genetic skin conditions for many years now.

About 5 years ago I had the chance to meet one of her patients, a young man with EB. The brutality of living/existing with this condition is striking and severe.

Imagine the driest and itchiest your skin has ever felt and multiply it by a few orders of magnitude, then apply that sensation across your entire body. That is what it is like all the time having EB. Except even worse because of the scarring that builds up over time.

Mihai sounds like an incredible individual who didn't let ANYTHING stop him from doing what he loved. What remarkable inspiration for the rest of us!

Klasiaster• 11 years ago

This humanity here is the power of Free Software. Thanks for all your involvement in any way as users and contributers.

dangoor• 11 years ago

I remember interviewing Mihai when he was joining Mozilla. It was a bit hard to understand him over the phone at first (I didn't know about the EB at the time), but he was undeniably smart and knew his stuff.

Mihai was a truly amazing person who accomplished so much despite his hard life. I'm reminded of him any time the Tron soundtrack comes up when I'm shuffling my music because Mihai one day randomly praised it on IRC. You couldn't tell how much effort Mihai had to put into every little thing day-to-day because he was every bit a member of the team.

RIP Mihai and thanks for being such an inspiring person.

noir_lord2• 11 years ago

This was one of the nicest pieces of writing I've seen in a great while, you clearly had huge affection for mihai.

It's strange I never knew mihai or even that he existed, I've noticed the FF developer tools and console get hugely better over time and it never occurred to me to think about who was behind that.

I have a medical condition that may well land me in a wheelchair in time to come but even that pales in comparison to EB, I get paid in the next few days and will donate to honour a man I never knew who did the thing that he loved.

Rauchg• 11 years ago

I highly recommend this documentary about EB and the great life and death of Jonny Kennedy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmahlc6n9_A

intruder• 11 years ago

Să trăieşti frate.

Very moving writing. Thank you Mihai!

christianbryant• 11 years ago

thank you (truly); and peace be with you always.

platform• 11 years ago

I did not know about EB.

donated to one of the organizations listed at the end of Mihai's post http://mihai.sucan.ro/mihai/blog/thanks

GutenYe• 11 years ago

RIP. mihai

callumprentice• 11 years ago

My internet connection at home has been down for 3 days and I've been grumpy and proclaiming that it's the end of the world.

What the hell am I thinking - the unimaginable courage to live a full, productive life with a debilitating condition like Mihai had sure puts thing in perspective.

Thank you for teaching me a lot today.

samikc• 11 years ago

Mihai, we will remember you by what you have done and accomplished.

RIP

jpatokal• 11 years ago

Some more detail on how he managed to type despite his condition: http://swiftkey.com/en/blog/how-swipe-typing-makes-communica...

allending• 11 years ago

RIP Mihai.

giis• 11 years ago

Very inspiring person. It's unfortunate,most of us are unaware of this person.

On his blog he said (http://mihai.sucan.ro/mihai/blog) > We want you and others to know us by our work, our achievements,

Yes, we came to know you for your work and achievement. Great work Mihai. Thanks for your contributions to opensource world. RIP

Console.mihai();

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