I will miss his puzzles enormously. One of my life goals was to get drawn as one of the winners of one of his Saturday puzzles. Despite submitting a few hundred completed puzzles over the years, I was never drawn out of the hat (perhaps there's a moral here about making your goals dependent on random events over which you have no control). There were clearly lots of other people who also enjoyed completing his puzzles.

I remember spending many enjoyable Saturday mornings attempting the Guardian crossword - more often than not set by Araucaria.

These things have an interesting way of marking the passage of our lives.

I could never quite get my head around his clue style. I'd usually manage cryptics from the other setters, but seeing his name I'd get a sinking feeling that I'm not going to get far.

And then... I found myself skipping the puzzles set by others, but tackling the ones from Araucaria. As Camus put it, "The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart."

The different styles of the setters is one of the nice things about the cryptics. I could usually complete an Araucaria puzzle (admittedly after more time that I'm prepared to admit here :-) but show me a puzzle by Puck and I'll probably just sit there staring blankly at it. Different setters suit different people.

Apart from Rufus, everyone should be able to solve a Rufus puzzle ...

I managed about half of his final puzzle, from November 16th. Even solved the "nil by mouth" one without making the connection. Now I am sad.

Another fan here. How gratifying and unexpected to find such a niche story on the HN front page, won't last.

I should think there’s quite a lot of overlap between British hackers and Araucaria fans. Certainly among my acquaintances there is.

Less so in other places, no doubt.

[shamefaced] I almost completed Tuesday's quick crossword.