In Memorium: Richard Cornford

[Michael Haufe (TNO)]

I just head from Asen Bozhilov that Richard Cornford has passed away [1]

For those who don't know, Richard contributed significantly to the JavaScript ecosystem and body of knowledge during the wild-west days of the web.

His personal website has been saved to the internet archive:

<https://web.archive.org/web/20180722214324/http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/cornford/>

You can see his years of contributions to this group here:

<https://groups.google.com/g/comp.lang.javascript/search?q=author%3ARichard%20author%3ACornford>

He was one of the major maintainers of the original FAQ:

<https://www.jibbering.com/faq/>

and much more.

If you would like to share your favorite posts, articles, and more by Richard that impacted you it would be appreciated.

My favorite article was his discovery of a means to implement private static and protected members in ES3:

<https://web.archive.org/web/20180723025401/http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/cornford/js_info/private_static.html>

People take for granted how easy web development is today. Those of us who were doing it in the late 90s and early 2000s had to deal with significantly different and incompatible DOM implementations, and basic language and browser functionality not being available so you had to roll your own. Richard Cornford's contributions helped map out this new space and provide some stability upon which to rely and build upon.

[1] <https://twitter.com/abozhilov/status/1391491266962153474>

[Rob Gr]

On Tuesday, May 11, 2021 at 10:31:51 AM UTC+10, Michael Haufe (TNO) wrote:
> I just head from Asen Bozhilov that Richard Cornford has passed away [1]

That is truely sad. Richard was one of the most knowledgable and eloquent contributors to comp.lang.javascript in the days of Usenet. His explanations of javascript features and behaviours was always clear, concise and correct.

I have a small file I called "Cornford Quotes" that contains gems like the following, which was in response to a question about best practice:

> Whenever anyone proposes a best practice, it is a good idea to require that they state a justification for that practice, in such a form that it is understandable, reasoned and convincing. Otherwise, what you are reading is probably just a personal opinion, in a world where the majority of commentators on browser scripting are more or less ill-informed/uninformed and/or suffering from misconceptions.

Vale Richard.

--
RobG

[Rebecca H]

Thank you for your kind words. I am his niece and can say that we were very sad and shocked to lose him at age 55. I saw some tweets quoting him and was pleased to then discover his articles and contributions in this community. JS was one of his main passions along with art and design, and most recently he had been combining interest in coding and design via CAD for 3D printing. I'm glad he could share an interest with you all. :)

All the best
Rebecca

[Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn]

Michael Haufe (TNO) wrote:

> I just head from Asen Bozhilov that Richard Cornford has passed away [1]

I can only hope it was not because of COVID-19. Too many good people have
been lost too early this way already :-(

> For those who don't know, Richard contributed significantly to the
> JavaScript ecosystem and body of knowledge during the wild-west days of
> the web.

He had an incredible patience, and was very good at, explaining things.
I would not be where I am today in computer science without his articles
here.

In fact, this entire newsgroup contributed greatly to my understanding in
those days (I joined here around 2000, and had an incredible learning curve
in the 2000s), which is why I thanked its regulars in general – and that
would certainly include Richard Cornford – in the preface of my 2011/2012
bachelor’s thesis. In hindsight, his long and well-worded technical
articles here probably have influenced me in choosing ECMAScript
implementations as its topic. See also my (this time explicitly chosen)
signature.

> His personal website has been saved to the internet archive:
>
>
<https://web.archive.org/web/20180722214324/http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/cornford/>
>
> You can see his years of contributions to this group here:
>
>
<https://groups.google.com/g/comp.lang.javascript/search?q=author%3ARichard%20author%3ACornford>
>
> He was one of the major maintainers of the original FAQ:
>
> <https://www.jibbering.com/faq/>

No, I do not think so. The original FAQ was *maintained* by Jim Ley, which
is why it is still available on his Web site. However, Richard Cornford was
one of the main *contributors* to the FAQ, simply because he posted a lot of
very good articles that then made it to the FAQ or FAQ Notes.

> and much more.
>
> If you would like to share your favorite posts, articles, and more by
> Richard that impacted you it would be appreciated.

His contributions are, and will be, of course preserved in and (as long as
Google Groups exists) through the new FAQ (which for some reason nobody
wishes to refer or contribute to :-( ):

<http://PointedEars.de/faq>

I think I also have saved several of his articles in my local archive.
Hopefully I can post the Message-IDs later.

I grieve with you.


\\//, PointedEars
--
> If you get a bunch of authors […] that state the same "best practices"
> in any programming language, then you can bet who is wrong or right...
Not with javascript. Nonsense propagates like wildfire in this field.
-- Richard Cornford, comp.lang.javascript, 2011-11-14

[John G Harris]

On Mon, 10 May 2021 17:31:47 -0700 (PDT), "Michael Haufe (TNO)"
<t...@thenewobjective.com> wrote:

>I just head from Asen Bozhilov that Richard Cornford has passed away [1]

<snip>

I remember him as someone who obviously knew what he was talking about
and was always polite with it. It's sad to hear he's no longer with
us.

John

[Kritsjan Robam]

That is a very sad news.
Hopefully he will enjoy his afterlife !



*****************************************************
Kritsjan Robam
Phone: 372 5 3 9 0 0 6 6 0