If you use a WordPress site, either as a visitor or owner, you’re using code that Alex King, one of the original developers of WordPress, worked on.
He passed away after fighting cancer for 2 years but his online presence lives on in the form of his blog with it’s deep archive of posts going back years, and in so much code that it’s humbling to look at his projects page. Looking through the svn log of WordPress trunk shows he still had a hand in helping the WordPress project until relatively recently:
trunk$ svn log|grep alexkingorg
props alexkingorg for the initial, long-suffering patch.
props alexkingorg. fixes #24162.
Props alexkingorg
`wp.media` instead of just `media`. props alexkingorg, see #22676.
Add $post_ID context to the pre_ping filter. props alexkingorg, devesine. fixes #18506.
Add filter so the users can select custom image sizes added by themes and plugins, props alexkingorg, fixes #18520
esc_textarea() and application for obvious textarea escaping. props alexkingorg. fixes #15454
Escape links by default. Props alexkingorg. see #13051
Safely include class-json.php, class-simplepie.php and class-snoopy.php, props alexkingorg, fixes #11827
Fix user creation from admin after changes for #10751. Fixes #10811 props alexkingorg.
Hooks needed to allow alternate category admin inteface. Props alexkingorg. fixes #3408
Wrap cat name in CDATA. props alexkingorg. fixes #3252
I’m sorry I never met Alex, however I remember working virtually with him and Adam Tow on AllThingsD which seems like a lifetime away now. Adam has a great article on Alex on his blog, as does Matt who went into detail about Alex’s involvement with WordPress going back to the days of b2. I had completely forgotten the CSS competition he mentioned!
Alex, your legacy lives on.
RIP… I had no idea.
Huge loss and I had no idea. thanks for letting us know
Sad sad sad. My thoughts go out to his young child and wife. Would love to have met him.
So sad, and my thoughts go to Alex’s wife and child.
I posted a note on SlashDot about Alex’s passing. A big loss for his family, friends, acquaintances and the internet. Alex is missed!