From: Rick DeNatale <rick.denatale@...>
Date: 2007-03-05T02:41:33+09:00
Subject: Re: Boy I love the Ruby community

On 3/3/07, Avdi Grimm <avdi@avdi.org> wrote:
> On 3/3/07, Robert Dober <robert.dober@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Who is this Dave Thomas guy?  No I am not kidding, probably I am just
> > > very ignorant, but not for very much longer...
> >
> > Nobody's going to tell me ;), boy I had to google all by myself
> >
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_A._Thomas_%28software_developer%29
> >
> > Oh yes *that* Dave Thomas, funny thing
>
> No, not *that* Dave Thomas.  Note that that page is about the guy who
> founded Object Technology International, not the guy who co-wrote The
> Pragmatic Programmer and the Pickaxe.

You beat me to it.  I knew the OTI Dave Thomas long before I
encountered Ruby, worked with him on various Smalltalk and OOPSLA
things then when IBM acquired OTI, then for him when OTI borrowed me
from IBM.  We always referred to him as "Big Dave."

When I first ran across Ruby and the Prag Programmers, I wondered if
it was the same Dave Thomas.

Actually, it's amazing how many Dave Thomases of note there are/were,
the ones I was already aware of were:

   * Dave Thomas of Prag Programmers
   * Dave Thomas of OTI
   * Dave Thomas of Second City and "The Mackenzie Brothers"
   * Dave Thomas the founder of Wendy's

But there are oh so many more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Thomas

I'm beginning to think that Dave Thomas is Welsh for John Smith!

Somehow if I ever managed to find fame, I wouldn't have quite the same
problem, although there seems to be an Italian-Canadian kickboxer with
the same last name famous enough to have a wikipedia article.

-- 
Rick DeNatale

My blog on Ruby
http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/