Comment by sedatk

I agree with the advice about paying it forward, but it's not mutually exclusive with showing gratitude.

Express gratitude now in the simplest way possible (like an email or a letter) than later after deliberating the best course of action. You can always do something nicer later.

I founded Eksi Sozluk, the most popular social platform from Turkey for the last 25+ years, partly because I was heavily inspired by Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. I sent him an email about the web site when it started becoming popular, thanking him for "all the fish". He was also working on a similar, albeit a more strictly edited, web site called h2g2.com at the time. He never replied to me, and passed away a year later or so. I find comfort in assuming that he had read my email, just didn't bother to reply. I'm so glad that I was able to reach out to him before he was gone.

Similarly, Fred Brooks passed away soon after I asked his permission about quoting him in my book Street Coder. He had replied about how I didn't need his permission for that. The permission thing was a publisher requirement, but it was also my admiration for Fred that made me reach out to him. So, despite his short lesson on fair use, I love that kind of personal interaction with him, and hoping that he felt something like how his contributions affected every random corner of computer science, more than he thought before he passed away. Again, I'm so glad that I reached out to him in time.

When Street Coder came out, I sent signed copies to the people who had helped me along the way. I know they would never read the book as they weren't the target audience. But, I think the book epitomizes the result of their understanding, kindness, and generosity that made an English author out of a high school graduate self-taught programmer from Turkey. It was the perfect greeting card and very well received.

Not saying you should write a book per se, but let them see their impact, show them what you achieved. Do it now.