Oh, Joe

"Just Jeepin'" (macintux)
04/20/2019 at 13:05 • Filed to: None

I’ve never talked about my professional life here, but today the software world lost a giant, albeit one most developers have never heard of.

Joe Armstrong was an engineer at Ericsson when he and two others developed a new programming language designed for telecom switches called Erlang. It was a very pragmatic, practical language designed to solve hard engineering problems. It never had a marketing machine behind it like Java, nor was it exposed directly to users like JavaScript, and was never pushed hard by its corporate sponsor like Go; in fact, Ericsson at one point banned it because the world was obviously going with C++ so what was the point?

Fortunately that brief period of exile made it possible for those who loved it to make it open source, and it has been a staple of backend systems programming ever since. For a few glorious years it was the language I used in my daily job, and all else pales before it in my eyes. If you’re really curious what makes it so special, and can put up with me lecturing you on the topic, you can see my favorite talk here:

Joe was a renaissance man in the best ways, always curious about the world around him, both technical and not. I’ve never met someone his age, or almost any age, with such a strong passion to learn about everything .

I suppose you could say we were friends; we spent some quality time together several years ago, and I’m pretty sure he’s my only contact on LinkedIn. My career has gone in a different direction and we haven’t talked in quite a while, so it was a shock today to discover that he passed away a few hours ago, seemingly unexpectedly.

Joe, I don’t think I’ve on my best day ever been as passionate and curious about technology as you were on your worst. I hope I can find a way to channel some of that, and I promise I’ll finally go look up that water painter you told me about years ago.

Rest In Peace.

DISCUSSION (9)

RacinBob > Just Jeepin'
04/20/2019 at 13:25

Well said.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Just Jeepin'
04/20/2019 at 13:38

Thank you for sharing this with us.

Just Jeepin' > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
04/20/2019 at 14:03

Thanks for indulging me. Now that I’ve left Facebook and effectively abandoned Twitter, Oppo is my only outlet for ruminations.

(Well, I have a blog I’ve ignored for years, but no one ever read it.)

IdleInCA > Just Jeepin'
04/20/2019 at 15:19

He was a brilliant developer and a decent human being. Erlang is a tremendous language. I agree w you that we've lost a giant in our field

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Just Jeepin'
04/20/2019 at 16:16

I’m the same. Oppo is a great place to hang out, to ruminate, and frankly, to gently troll.

Great tribute to your friend though.

barnie > Just Jeepin'
04/20/2019 at 18:06

I installed Wings3D last week to learn how to do simple 3D shapes for the printer. It is written in Erlang. I’ve been writing code for nearly 40-years; m any languages, but this is not one I know. I was thinking to look into it. RIP, Joe. You’ve pushed me over the edge to do so. And , thanks, JJ for bringing this to our notice.

liam > Just Jeepin'
04/17/2020 at 20:14

Thank you. I worked with some Tamdem s many years ago so was interesting to see them mentioned. Erlang looks like it may be interesting enough to encourage me to go poke at a bit of programming.

Just Jeepin' > liam
04/17/2020 at 20:19

You actually watched my talk? Cool, even I haven’t done that.

I was really impressed by the war stories of a fellow I met who used to work around one. They turned it off, moved it to a new data center, and when they turned it back on it picked up exactly where it left off.

Anyway, Erlang is a fun language to play with. I haven’t done anything with it since I left that job, but I hope to get back to it someday.

liam > Just Jeepin'
04/17/2020 at 20:32

The ones I had experience with ran ATMs. I did watch the talk, and am always looking for a language that has syntax that doesn’t get in the way of doing things :-) (one has to dream... :-))