[zexbha]

This was great to read. I had never heard of Philip Hazel until today. Although I appreciate the work that he's done in maintaining PCRE, I hope that I am never in the position where I am still working on a project at that age.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

I had never heard of him, but can completely relate.

I plan to pop my clogs at the keyboard.

The coroner is gonna have to rub "YTЯƎWϘ" off my cheek.

[mmastrac]

The dedication to the Unicode textual representation of your ASCII demise is much appreciated.

[rswail]

How did you get a backwards Y, T, and W? /s

[JeremyNT]

> I hope that I am never in the position where I am still working on a project at that age.

"Hijacked" - used in the title here but not in any of the actual quotes - implies that Phillip is some sort of captive of his projects' success, but I'm not sure that's true. After all, he stepped away from Exim (an incredibly notable project) many years ago, so it's not as if he is incapable of walking away when the time is right.

So, presumably, he has only worked so long on these projects because he finds meaning and/or enjoyment from doing so. I can only hope if/when I reach the age of 80 I'll have something meaningful like this I could contribute to!

[jzb]

I borrowed the title from a talk he did in 1999, but didn't find a way (mea culpa) to work that naturally into the story.

I do believe that, yes, he has enjoyed the work and "hijack" is employed tongue-in-cheek.

[jxramos]

Yah I kept searching for a highjack connection thinking he got hit by malware or something like that. Never found it so I think you’re right.

[neilv]

What would you be doing instead at 80, if not working on a project?

[SapporoChris]

Depends