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Yuri Rubinsky | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 2, 1952 |
| Died | January 21, 1996(1996-01-21) (aged 43) |
| Occupation | Software architect |
| Spouse | Holley Rubinsky (1984–death) |
Yuri Ivan Rubinsky (August 2, 1952 – January 21, 1996) was a Lebanese-born writer, software executive, and promoter of theStandard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), which was the basis for the now-ubiquitousXML. In Canada, he is probably best known as founding co-director of the Banff Publishing Workshop and for his work in applying technology to help visually impaired people. TheYuri Rubinsky Memorial Award was created posthumously in his memory.
Yuri was born inTripoli, Lebanon on August 2, 1952, the son of Andrew and Anna Rubinsky. He and his family emigrated to theToronto,Ontario, Canada, area when he was three. He is a graduate ofBrock University[1] and studied architecture at theUniversity of Toronto. After a variety of jobs in theYukon, Yuri focused on the publishing industry. During the summer of 1978, he attended the Radcliffe Publishing course (now theColumbia Publishing Course) at Harvard University. Yuri was so impressed with this course that he persuaded the Banff Centre for the Arts to sponsor the Banff Publishing Workshop (now the SFU Summer Publishing Workshops) two years later.
In 1984, Yuri marriedHolley Rubinsky, a writer who he had met at a Banff Publishing Workshop.[2]
He died at age 43 on January 21, 1996, after suffering a massive and unexpected heart attack at his home in Toronto, Canada.
In 1984, along with partners David Slocombe,Stan Bevington, and Patrick Dempster, Yuri founded a small Toronto-based technology company called SoftQuad,[3] of which he was President.SoftQuad was started in order to improve automated typesetting at Toronto'sCoach House Press, and for many years developed a version oftroff. SoftQuad developed and sold a variety of SGML tools, such as Author/Editor, and notably one of the first commercialHTML authoring products,HoTMetaL. From the beginning, Yuri was instrumental in bringing the SGML community together and spreading the SGML gospel. He was widely respected and well-liked. He was one of the founders of the SGML Open consortium,[4] and very active as an organizer and speaker at industry and standards events. In 1995 Yuri sponsored theSoftQuad Web Award presented toDoug Engelbart at the Fourth Annual WWW Conference in Boston,[5] publishing the keepsake bookletBoosting Our Collective IQ as a special tribute to Doug to be given to attendees of the award ceremony.
Yuri was interested in the problem ofaccessibility—making software and information more usable for people with physical disabilities. In particular, he was active in using SGML to improve the access to information of blind and visually impaired people. He was technical chair of the International Committee for Accessible Document Design (ICADD), and worked towards makingHTML more accessible. Using SGML source files, Yuri's novelChristopher Columbus Answers All Charges (see below) was coded intoBraille and produced on voice synthesizer before it was printed on paper.
Yuri was an author of both fiction and scholarly material, a publisher, and most importantly a visionary. His books includeA History of The End of The World (1982),The Wankers' Guide to Canada (1986) and (as co-author, with Marc Giacomelli) the novelChristopher Columbus Answers All Charges (1993). He was editor ofCharles Goldfarb'sThe SGML Handbook (1990) and SoftQuad'sThe SGML Primer (1991). At the time of his death he was working onSGML on the Web (1997) which was completed by his friend and colleague Murray Maloney.
In addition to books, Yuri co-authored and produced the playInvisible Cities in 1981; authored a one-edition newspaper spoof,Not The Globe and Mail (1984); created and editedYorker magazine (1985–1986); and co-authored and producedSGML: The Movie (1990).
One of Yuri's most famous quotes:[6]
"There is no point in storing anything unless you can find it again, in its most useful component elements, ready to be re-purposed. There is a danger in allowing your most valuable asset—the 90% of your information that is in documents—to be locked away in proprietary, unmanaged, unmanageble electronic formats. Luckily, SGML provides an internationally standardized, vendor-supported, multi-purpose, independent way of doing business. If you aren't using it today, you will be next year." (1994)
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