David Davenport

Meslegim ile ilgili ilk dersimi 2005 yilinda Sn. Davenport'tan almistim. Guler yuzlulugu, cana yakinligi ve gosterdigi ilgisi ile hep aklimda yer etmistir. Robotik alaninda yaptigim calismalari 2019 yilinda Bilkent'teki hocalarima sunarken, kendisine ilk robot programimi aslinda onun "Roboy" u ile yaptigimi soylemistim. Kendisi gercekten bu anlamda da bana meslegimi ogreten ilk hocadir. Allah rahmet eylesin, cok kaliteli bir insandi. Butun sevenlerine bas sagligi diliyorum.

Bilkent CS mezunlarinin ve ogrencilerinin hepsinde emegi olan, cogumuzun programlamaya giris dersinde tanistigi, nazik, guleryuzlu ve yardim sever bir insandi. Universite yillarimizi anarken David Davenport isminin gecmedigi bir sohbet hemen hemen olmaz. Bu denli kiymetli ve kaliteli bir insanin kaybi beni derinden uzdu. Ailesine, CS ve Bilkent camialarina bas sagligi diliyorum.

Tanıdığım kısa süre boyunca öğrettiklerinizle bana ve sayısız öğrenciye rehber oldunuz, hayatımızı değiştirdiniz. Ne zaman olduğu fark etmeksizin bizi hep güler yüzle karşılayıp derslerinizi hep ilk günkü heyecanla anlattınız, bizi motive ettiniz. Sizin gibi iyi bir hocadan ve iyi bir insandan ders almış olduğum için kendimi şanslı hissediyorum. Sizi çok özleyeceğiz David Hocam. Huzur içinde uyuyun.

Our Dear Professor, it greatly pains me to see you depart from this life. I send my dearest condolences to both Derya and Güneş. He was one of the kindest souls ever to exist, he was always energetic and enthusiastic. he was more than a programming mentor, his philosophy in education and life has struck me as being incredibly beautiful. Your memory and philosophy will forever be engraved in our hearts, you will always live in our hearts and thoughts.

We were the lucky ones who had the chance to take their first computer science class from him. He was the kindest, understanding, and curious person I had the honor to have as an instructor. What we learned from him is more than a Java class. It is a philosophy that I will carry rest of my life. David Hocam, thank you for everything.

Hep arkadaslarimdan adini duydugum, karsilasmama ragmen derin saygi duydugum hocamiza allahtan rahmet sevdiklerine bassagligi diliyorum.

David hoca çok değerli bir insan ve güler yüzüyle, nezaketiyle, iyi niyetiyle aklımızda hep. Allah rahmet etsin.

David was a constant, kind, cheerful and discreet presence in our family’s lives for the past twenty. We saw him in our neighbourhood, on campus, and at our philosophy seminars. He was never in a hurry – despite the fact that he worked so much, as we found out later. He always had a kind word to say to each one of us, knew of our situation, and always enquired about the children. Our son Max loved him, and David would always go out of his way to stop and chat with him whenever they met. I haven’t told Max yet, because, like the rest of us, he will not want to believe that David is gone. My deepest sympathies are with Güneş, and Derya, who used to come to the philosophy seminars with her Dad. I hope to see Derya at a philosophy seminar again soon.

David was definitely one of the most inspirational professors, advisors and human-beings. I was always amazed by his enthusiasm and endeavour to educate abundance of students for so many years. He was defitinely loving his job and I presume that's why many of his students are deeply saddened by his devastating loss.

He was the reason I hold on to coding and keep pursueing my passion about it when I was a freshman. He had a warm and exuberant personality which made his classes enjoyable as well as the conversations that I had with him during the brakes and labs. Although he was placing great demands on us, that's what made us good programmers in the end. I and many others like me owe him a lot. I truely appreciate all of his efforts and endurance for us. We will never forget you. Rest in peace, Sir.

Çok tatlı bir hocamızdı, eğlenceli bir insandı. Öğrencilerini önemser, kimseyi kırmamaya cevap vermeye özen gösterirdi. Hiç beklemeyeceğim bir haberdi ve beni derinden etkiledi. Huzur içinde yatsın, hepimizin başı sağ olsun.

İlk yılımda öğrettikleri halen geçerli ve halen kafa açıyor. Başımız sağolsun.

Bilgisayar Mühendisliği’ne ilk adımdı o, bizlere ve ülkemize kattığı değerler için sonsuz teşekkürler. Çok değerliydi, hep öyle kalacak. Hepimizin başı sağolsun. Işıklar içinde uyusun. Ailesine ve tüm sevenlerine sabırlar dilerim.

David cok ozel bir ogretmendi. Onu hep guleryuzu ve ogrencilerine olan dostca yaklasimiyla hatirlayacagim.

Bugüne kadar binlerce bilgisayar mühendisinin ve hatta diğer mühendislerin kod yazma becerilerine büyük katkı sağlamış büyük hoca, rahat uyu, so far so good! Başta ailesi olmak üzere hepimizin başı sağ olsun.

David hocadan programlama derslerini alalı 30 sene olmuş. O zamanlar Pascal ile veriliyordu, tabi bir de ROBO vardı. Kendisiyle ilgili bir çok güzel anıyı hala net hatırlıyorum. Çok iyi niyetli ve öğretmeyi çok seven bir insandı. Binlerce öğrenciye programlamayı öğretti. Yapay zeka kulübünde de bizlere destek oluyordu. Başta ailesi olmak üzere tüm sevenlerinin başı sağolsun.

As many other colleagues, David was one of the first Bilkenters that I had communicated when I started to work at Bilkent University.

I was so honored when David accepted to be a member of our BETS Team when we had established a volunteer team from among full-time faculty members who would support faculty members and students for using Moodle as a course management system in 2007.

The below message from David in November 2007 initiated our STARS - Moodle integration which has been the real success for using Moodle as our course management system:
—---
As I mentioned when we met yesterday, I think we definitely need to consider what can/needs to be done to ensure Moodle in the Spring semester runs slightly smoother than it did this semester! I am particularly concerned that the system be integrated with registry information ensuring that student info (names, emails, photos, etc.) are correct and, ideally, that they can be automatically enrolled to any relevant courses.
——

David was one of the presenters of the first workshop that our Provost at that time Abdullah Atalar, had organized to disseminate useful ideas with a view to enhancing instruction across the university. David was one of the instructors who had a high student participation in his courses and he presented "Handling Multi-section Courses and the Teaching Team.”

David has always been the driving force and the helping hand as he has indicated in his message he sent in September 2008:
—
You mentioned something about proofreading the documents explaining how to use the system. I can certainly help with that and with checking the system once it is
working, but in any case I need to figure it out myself first.
—

David has responded to a great percentage of more than ten thousand messages that BETS has received sinde 2007 and has helped to many Moodle users. Additionally he has spent a lot of time working on Moodle code and proposing patches.

David has been the first person to see the problems with Moodle like “Moodle is too slow!” Turnitin related glitches, and also coming with best solutions for future…
And the first reactions came from him when I shared the new features of Zoom that could prevent trolls and meeting crashers saying that "Nothing really new is there? Won't work/help!…" And he was always right!

I was so much looking forward to our next meeting during which we would listen to David’s suggestions… Because he was the first to yell out the problems that we might encounter, we had given him the title DA - Devil’s Advocate. We all feel lucky to have had David on team and
will miss our DA so much! So much!

İlk bölüm dersini tüm mühendislik öğrencileriyle birlikte alırken ondan ders almaya devam edecek olmanın mutluluğunu yaşatan, güler yüzü dışında yüz ifadesini hatırlayamadığım güzel insan... Hepimizin başı sağolsun, ışıklar içinde uyusun.

Kendisinden ders alabilmek benim için büyük bir ayrıcalıktı. Huzurlar içinde uyuyun hocam, iyi ki sizi tanımışım.

It is hard to imagine CS101/102 without him. Rest in peace David

Muhteşem bir hoca ve insandı. Kodlamanın temellerini öğreten, ne kadar disiplinli olsa da bir o kadar da güleryüzlü ve asla sinirli görmediğim saygıdeğer hocam huzur içinde yatın.
Başımız sağolsun...