28 ms·

Joe Armstrong has died

1928 points by okket 8y ago

rkachowski 8y ago
rip joe. sorry that your last tweet was in reply to my trolling.
- collinvandyck76 8y ago
  i just looked up this interaction. you seemed well intended enough :)
sjtgraham 8y ago
Very sad news. Thank you to HN mods for commemorating Joe's passing with the black bar. His contribution to our world is immeasurable. Although I never had the pleasure of meeting him in person, by all accounts he was much loved. Joe you will be missed.
- mises 8y ago
  For those of us who haven't seen it before, would you please explain what this means? I assume it is some sort of sign of mourning?
  - ufo 8y ago
    It is exactly what you guessed.
    - noir_lord 8y ago
      I like the black bar, it shows both mourning and respect. Occasionally I'll see the black bar and the notice and not even know who the person was - at which point I get to find out about someone amazing I didn't know existed and to appreciate their contribution. Obviously I'd prefer that there not need to be a black bar though.
  - steveklabnik 8y ago
    It’s done any time someone “with significance to the community” dies. I’m not sure when it started but it’s been a thing for many years. Feels extremely appropriate to me, and honestly, it was the first thing I looked for after I saw a tweet about this. RIP, Joe :(
    - _asummers 8y ago
      RIP Joe indeed. He will be sorely missed as a pillar of the BEAM community. Not to diverge too far, but does anyone know who the first black bar was?
      - steveklabnik 8y ago
        I tried to use the search and couldn’t find anything authoritative.
davidw 8y ago
Francesco is encouraging people to share their memories of Joe: https://twitter.com/FrancescoC/status/1119604272000315394?s=19 https://twitter.com/FrancescoC/status/1119604272000315394?s=...
dhuramas 8y ago
A great loss to the community. Even though I don’t use Erlang, I’ve always been enamored by it’s unique features. Black Ribbon please.
- 1f60c 8y ago
  It seems like the black ribbon has now been added to the site.
  - em-bee 8y ago
    it would be nice if the black bar or some added keyword in the title could link to this discussion thread to make it easier to find.
kozak 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Armstrong_(programmer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Armstrong_(programmer)
- lucb1e 8y ago
  Thanks, I had no idea who this is.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Would anyone be able to suggest a quality photo of Joe to use for his Wikipedia page? I will be spending some time this weekend improving his page.
  - augustl 8y ago
    This photoshop by Bodil Stokke is the obvious choice. https://twitter.com/bodil/status/1119644170816303104 https://twitter.com/bodil/status/1119644170816303104
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - ignoramous 8y ago
    Joe's twitter gallery has a some nice ones that you might need to adapt for wikipedia (not sure about the license, though): 1. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DBs4Q53XkAI6yKd.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DBs4Q53XkAI6yKd.jpg 2. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAs_wqVXsAEvTor.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAs_wqVXsAEvTor.jpg 3. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ds19NLdXgAAMXho.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ds19NLdXgAAMXho.jpg
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      Thank you.
diginux 8y ago
RIP Joe. Every interaction I had with you in the past was always a great time. You'll be missed, but never forgotten. Thanks for everything you've done for the Erlang community and distributed systems design.
flocial 8y ago
This is indeed sad news (I feel he deserves the black bar of mourning once confirmed). Although Elixir gets the most attention these days the solid engineering of BEAM is the foundation that Elixir is built on.
- jeremyjh 8y ago
  Joe was also a part of the Elixir community. He learned the language early on and participated in the mailing list and forums. Actually, he had just very recently become an admin at elixirforum.com. I will really miss him.
  - flocial 8y ago
    His "now for the tricky bit" talk was not only funny but thought provoking. He was kind and very open minded. Thanks for pointing this out.
- MagicPropmaker 8y ago
  Candy-coated Elixir, which tries to hide concepts that are difficult for people who approach programming without the requisite mathematical skills, may be getting most of the attention, but serious mission-critical "nine-nines" projects are still being done in Erlang. I program in Erlang every day for a system that can't (and doesn't) have any downtime.
  - eropple 8y ago
    Please don't do this sort of thing. It's crass and it's wrong besides.
    - pmarreck 8y ago
      Appeal to disgust fallacy. Let people mourn how they will.
    - MagicPropmaker 8y ago
      It’s not crass to honor Joe’s legacy. It’s on topic and relevant.
tzar 8y ago
–Hello Mike –Hello Joe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKfKtXYLG78&t=2m7s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKfKtXYLG78&t=2m7s
- Carpetsmoker 8y ago
  I will never understand why Armstrong didn't pursue a career in acting.
- andrewchambers 8y ago
  Goodbye Joe
- badosu 8y ago
  I rewatched this so many times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRbY3TMUcgQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRbY3TMUcgQ
  - vaylian 8y ago
    For context: This is the unofficial sequal to the official Erlang movie. Updated for people from the future. Definitely worth a watch.
    - davidw 8y ago
      Many of his videos are worth a watch: https://www.youtube.com/user/gar1t/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/gar1t/videos The 'MongoDB is web scale' one is pretty funny and was widely watched shared in the day. I wish he'd make some more videos.
  - pmarreck 8y ago
    This will be incredibly funny for certain people (like myself)
  - usermac 8y ago
    "...I'm interested in what the little girl has to say" OMG that line made me laugh out loud. thanks for sharing the link.
dpeck 8y ago
That is so sad, he was in his late 60s and it seemed like he had a lot of life left in him, talking about how software can get better and having a great (and sometimes snarky) outlook on the profession. Highly recommend his thesis (2003) and a few of his great interviews/presentations for anyone who isn’t familiar with Joe, it captures a lot of what he thought about and pushed for in his professional life. http://erlang.org/download/armstrong_thesis_2003.pdf http://erlang.org/download/armstrong_thesis_2003.pdf https://youtu.be/fhOHn9TClXY https://youtu.be/fhOHn9TClXY https://youtu.be/lKXe3HUG2l4 https://youtu.be/lKXe3HUG2l4 https://youtu.be/rmueBVrLKcY https://youtu.be/rmueBVrLKcY I hope his family and friends can find some comfort in how much he was appreciated and admired in the development community.
- nextos 8y ago
  I came here to say the same thing. His thesis is extremely readable and illuminating on the topic of reliable distributed systems.
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    It goes much further than that, it shows how to tackle reliability even in systems that are not distributed. The primary insight is that all software will be buggy so you need to bake reliability in from day one by assuming your work product will contain faults.
    - nextos 8y ago
      Yes, I know. Erlang was not distributed till 1991, roughly 5 years after it was born. It's also really illuminating how they implemented the first versions of Erlang as a reified Prolog [1]. But that is not explained in the thesis, just in his 1992 paper which he briefly cites. [1] https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=F47FE951F0EE95C02E755CF55F15033F?doi=10.1.1.34.3972&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=F4...
- masklinn 8y ago
  > That is so sad, he seemed like he had a lot of life left in him talking about how software can get better and having a great (and sometimes snarky) outlook on the profession. I'm in actual shock, he was tweeting about pretty much that (also brexit and playing with his phone's voice recognition) just 2 weeks ago… He wasn't even 70…
tosh 8y ago
Just re-watched his Strangeloop talk: “The mess we’re in”. Still so spot on. He will be dearly missed. https://youtube.com/watch?v=lKXe3HUG2l4 https://youtube.com/watch?v=lKXe3HUG2l4
- HenryBemis 8y ago
  Now that is a beautifl mind!!
- nickjj 8y ago
  I just watched that for the first time the other day. Such a good talk.
- octosphere 8y ago
  Always liked his reference to GruntJS[0] [0] https://gruntjs.com/ https://gruntjs.com/
- blacksqr 8y ago
  "And then we've got this sort of dichotomy between efficiency and clarity. You know, to make something clearer, you add a layer of abstraction and to make it more efficient you remove a layer of abstraction. So go for the clarity bit. Wait ten years and it will be a thousand times faster, you want it a million times faster, wait 20 years."
  - solipsism 8y ago
    That's... one way to make something clearer. It's also a way to hide complexity behind leaky facades. "Just add a layer of abstraction" is horrible advice.
- fjni 8y ago
  “It said I didn’t have grunt installed. So I googled a bit, and I found out what grunt was. Grunt is ... I still don’t really know what it is.” Delivered that line with perfect timing and humility. What a great sense of humor!
- a_c 8y ago
wintorez 8y ago
Unbelievable. Such a sad day.
feniv 8y ago
I've only recently started learning Erlang (via Elixir), but I'm absolutely amazed by the underlying technology and the brilliant minds behind it. I'll remember Joe by the several insightful, entertaining talks he's given in recent years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKXe3HUG2l4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKXe3HUG2l4 in particular.
1f60c 8y ago
Very sad. My condolences to his family, friends and everyone who knew him.
alexgaribay 8y ago
This is incredibly saddening. Joe has left an incredible legacy for us to continue on. I'm saddened that I never got to meet him and thank him for all that he has done.
sankoz 8y ago
I was following him on Twitter, and it was always amazing that a genius like him took the time to respond to people on Twitter with insightful comments. Showed what a great human being he was. RIP Joe.
- mml 8y ago
  same. i had some interaction with him on twitter, years ago, and somehow he wound up following me(!). RIP Joe.
- why-el 8y ago
  Not just that, but he also struggled in public with things we all struggle with, often with incredible humor. His struggles with Grunt.js come to mind. His humanity and charisma was in full force, and you can tell he worked in full grace and gratitude. His work of course is a testament to this.
jacktang 8y ago
RIP. Thank you for Erlang, the great programming language, it saves me a lot of time. And thank you for the book: Programming Erlang. It guides me to think the programming world in different, interesting, and simpler way.
apoorvgarg 8y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37wFVVVZlVU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37wFVVVZlVU This recent panel (Armstrong, Hewitt and Hoare) discussion on concurrency was the first time I got to know about him and it gave me a lot of food for thought.
jchristopherinc 8y ago
You will be duly missed, Joe. Thanks for giving us Erlang.
blockchainman 8y ago
RIP JOE ! We will miss you !
filleokus 8y ago
I first learnt about Joe from this music video (based on Erlang: The Movie, I believe): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1LjmDCOM-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1LjmDCOM-8 Afterwards looked up talks by him and was fascinated by Erlang, sad to see him pass away.
- pmarreck 8y ago
  Never saw this, love it!
butterisgood 8y ago
He’ll be missed!
charlysl 8y ago
I really like this talk of his, he was an amazing speaker: "Computing: The first 100 years" https://youtu.be/itKFrXghGuA https://youtu.be/itKFrXghGuA
dberg 8y ago
I met Joe in 2012 when I spoke at the Erlang Conf in SF. he is the reason I discovered functional programming and the whole concept of message passing (actor model) in distributed systems. Quite a legend and contributor to the world of computer science. RIP joe.
- imglorp 8y ago
  I also met him at a conference in '16. He gave a talk but mostly wanted to shoot the breeze in the hallway with fellow hackers. He lamented scheduling gripes with his PM, being a slave to Jira, and some new things he was playing with. Very approachable and humble. He asked a few of us hanging around what talks we were thinking of attending and we agreed to check out something about concurrency in some modernish platform. The speaker was working on issues with handling failures, message passing, memory management, etc, but then realized Joe was in the back and pointed out it had all been solved many years ago by that guy over there. Everyone laughed and gave Joe the acknowledgement. I don't feel like we've finished learning from and building on his work. RIP.
deleted 8y ago
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armitron 8y ago
Life is short and Joe went much younger than one would expect. When I find myself doing something that I do not enjoy, I'm always trying to meditate to the moment of my future-death in order to psychologically slap myself in the face and re-evaluate what it is that I'm doing. We only get so many years and we should strive to use them to the best of our ability and potential. Joe Armstrong certainly did that. RIP.
jwatzman 8y ago
Back in 2015, I somehow ended up as part of a panel discussion at the end of a conference. The panel was going to include Joe Armstrong, Don Syme (inventor of F#), Tony Hoare (!), and myself (a nobody compared to any of them). During the conference, I wanted to meet each of the other folks on the panel, and ended up in a somewhat lengthy conversation with Joe Armstrong -- mostly about Erlang, but at some point the panel itself came up. I mentioned how nervous I was; me, sitting on a panel with such other esteemed and brilliant folks -- of course referring to all of the other people on the panel, including Joe Armstrong himself. I'll never forget his response: "yeah, me too! Wow, Tony Hoare, seriously?!" I'm not sure if he deliberately misunderstood me or not, but it definitely put me more at ease, realising that there's always someone bigger, even for the folks you see as bigger than you! So sad to learn of his passing. RIP.
- noblethrasher 8y ago
  Not at all hard to believe that he was sincere. He seemed to be pretty starstruck when he was interviewing Alan Kay on stage just three years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhOHn9TClXY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhOHn9TClXY.
  - codyb 8y ago
    And his twitter @joeerl [0] which I feel unfortunate to have just discovered today is filled with him discovering emojis and dictation, talking up the joys of letters, and discussing FPGAs. It’s sad to hear of his passing, and rewarding to see he was just as kind and curious as you could ever hope to be even just this month. [0] - https://mobile.twitter.com/joeerl https://mobile.twitter.com/joeerl
  - vanderZwan 8y ago
    I was about to share this youtube channel, it has lots of wonderful videos with him - this particular one is a great example.
- ahmedalsudani 8y ago
  Joe always seemed like a super approachable and super humble guy. I never interacted with him but he always left a good taste in my mouth whenever I watched him on video--which happened quite often in the period during which I was obsessed with Erlang. It's a sad day...
brador 8y ago
Anyone know what he died of/from?
- pmarreck 8y ago
  Glad I’m not the only one who wants to know
  - narendraj9 8y ago
    Yes, what exactly happened to him?
    - pmarreck 8y ago
      Pulmonary fibrosis.
- comboy 8y ago
  I keep refreshing looking for the answer. Seems that it would be the top question for somebody who was 30. He was 68 but he had way more energy than many 20 year olds that I see. I'm deeply sad. Despite being absolutely brilliant he was also extremely positive and full of humility. It's a rare combination.
- rapsey 8y ago
  Since it was sudden, a stroke of some sort is generally the case.
  - bobowzki 8y ago
    He was normally very active on twitter but I noticed he hasn't posted since the 10th of April, that's 10 days ago.. I guess it's only human nature to want to know what happened when someone you admired suddenly passed away.
- asveikau 8y ago
  I'm always curious about these things because if it's something medical that might be preventable or that has some nonprofits raising funds for, etc., then that can increase awareness. But I can understand if people don't always rush to talk about it.
keymone 8y ago
Erlang was the entry into functional paradigm that clicked with me. Thank you Joe, for that and much more. RIP
MagicPropmaker 8y ago
One of the most charming, smart, funny, and well-rounded people I've ever met.
kaonashi 8y ago
Had the privilege of hearing him talk a couple times. While I didn't know him personally, I will feel his absence.
the_trapper 8y ago
Thank you Joe for all of your contributions! You will be missed.
adamnemecek 8y ago
World would be different without you.
jah 8y ago
One of my favorite quotes from Joe: “Make it work, then make it beautiful, then if you really, really have to, make it fast. 90% of the time, if you make it beautiful, it will already be fast. So really, just make it beautiful!”
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
tluyben2 8y ago
Very sad. One of the few people who did not compromise on quality.
isatty 8y ago
Rest In Peace, Joe. I’m surprised and ashamed that I have not heard about him but thanks to the HN community for posting links to his thesis and talks. Wonderfully approachable and a great guy.
djhworld 8y ago
This is devastating, RIP. I watched this talk a few months ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmueBVrLKcY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmueBVrLKcY called "Computer Science - A Guide for the Perplexed" It was superb, I think it's unfortunate that he had to rush through it because of time constraints, his anecdotes and delivery were really engaging and funny.
m2mdas2 8y ago
5 or 6 years ago I saw a presentation of Joe in Infoq. There he said "solution of the dining philosophers problem is to give fork to everyone". It really made me interested in actor based system. Now here I am, building financial system in java where akka is the vital component of the system. Thank you very much Joe. Rest in peace.
namelosw 8y ago
This is so sad. RIP Joe. I'll miss him so much. Erlang is one of the most Perlis languages for me. I'm always a little bit cynical and think Erlang deserve more attention. Several months ago Joe post this tweet about a game company refused to tell other people they are using Erlang. https://twitter.com/joeerl/status/1104298407231922176 https://twitter.com/joeerl/status/1104298407231922176 I just watched his great talk last year not long ago - The Forgotten Ideas in Computer Science: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I_jE0l7sYQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I_jE0l7sYQ
revvx 8y ago
From the day I learned about his work he became my greatest influence in my career, and still is to this day. I'm grateful for all the insights and the perpetually fresh perspective, on distributed systems, on PL research, on databases and on OOP. I'm grateful that I have someone like him to look up to in my profession: able to solve hard problems while still having fun with novel solutions, while still keeping it all simple. We'll take at least 20 years just to catch up with him.
Existenceblinks 8y ago
I remember his joke .. Erlang is "write once, run forever". Fascinating. The BEAM will run forever since there are also other languages compiled to it.
RaymondDurk 8y ago
Please down vote this. This was a hoax.
justinzollars 8y ago
How we program multicores: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo5WL5IQAd0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo5WL5IQAd0
pmarreck 8y ago
I’m shocked by this. Thank you for saving me from OOP, Joe. (via Elixir) May your hypothetical soul have as much uptime as your systems did.
tibyat 8y ago
too much to ask to include what he’s known for in the title?
macintux 8y ago
Absolutely devastating. Joe was so full of life, consumed by curiosity. I had the pleasure of escorting him around Chicago during an Erlang conference several years ago, and I still have in my Reminders app to look up a water painter named Zorn that he recommended highly as we tried to find our way to some building or another. He’s also, I believe, my only LinkedIn contact. I opened a new account a couple of years ago when Basho was winding down, but I strongly dislike the service and didn’t do anything with it...but when Joe found me and added me, I had to approve that, obviously. Godspeed Joe. I’m sure if the interface between this world and the next is in need of debugging, you’re the man for the job.
- estomagordo 8y ago
  Now is a good time to look up Anders Zorn. He was perhaps the most esteemed Swedish painter during the late 1800s and early 1900s.
navyad 8y ago
Hearing Joe's talks on various topics of computing are thrilling. Long live Erlang and Elixir.
zaph0d_ 8y ago
This is absolutely devastating! His talk "The Mess We're In" was one of those talks which were incredibly funny and informative at the same time. I absolutely lost it, when he told the story of the single comment his coworker put into the Erlang code.[1] Rest in peace! [1] https://youtu.be/lKXe3HUG2l4?t=630 https://youtu.be/lKXe3HUG2l4?t=630
dominicl 8y ago
So sad. Humble, open minded genius. I was hugely impressed the first time I learned about Erlang and impressed again when I saw how welcoming and open minded he approached Elixir and it's community. A great man has left the planet :-(
tlrobinson 8y ago
Erlang was one of the first interesting languages I learned after the “basics” (C, C++, Java, JavaScript, etc) and even though I never actually used it for anything real, just learning it opened my eyes to a bunch of concepts that have been useful over the years.
pjmlp 8y ago
I always enjoyed watching his talks. My feelings to friends and family.
codr7 8y ago
So long Joe, and thanks for coming here and doing your thing. Erlang changed my way of thinking in several ways, a quick glance at some of my own creations [0] makes that pretty obvious. [0] https://github.com/codr7/g-fu#tasks https://github.com/codr7/g-fu#tasks
garyhbutton 8y ago
RIP
ipsum2 8y ago
If people aren't aware, Joe's blog is full of interesting tidbits: https://joearms.github.io/#Index https://joearms.github.io/#Index. I remember reading this one in particular: https://joearms.github.io/#2015-03-12%20The%20web%20of%20names%2C%20hashes%20and%20UUIDs https://joearms.github.io/#2015-03-12%20The%20web%20of%20nam...
ignoramous 8y ago
Devastating. I'd like to point out a recent tweet @joeerl shared [0][1] that contained things he felt were good wisdom but lost over time: -- Ideas that we forgot: 1. Flow based programming. 2. Pipes. 3. Linda Tuple Spaces. 4. Hypertext (=/= HTML). Computer Science 101: 1. Observational equivalence. 2. Isolation. 3. Composition. 4. Causality. 5. Physics. Two papers to read: 1. The Emperor's Old Clothes - ACM. 2. A Plea for Lean Software - Nikalus Wirth. Two videos to watch: 1. The Computer Revolution Hasn't Happened Yet - Alan Kay. 2. Computers for Cynics - Ted Nelson. Four old tools to learn: Emacs, Bash, Make, Shell. Three books to read: 1. Algorithms + Data Structure = Programs. 2. The Mythical Man Month. 3. How to Win Friends and Influence People. Correct a typo: ?? Learn git -> locate program that creates page -> locate typo -> correct -> send push [sic] request. !! Select text -> type in correction -> people see change. Two projects: 1. Link to content hash not a name (request content by sha256, immune to pepole in the middle). 2. Elastic Links (links should not break if you move an endpoint). -- Easily one of the best thinkers of his generation [2]. RIP. [0] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ds19oHnXoAAwlAp.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ds19oHnXoAAwlAp.jpg [1] https://www.youtube.com/embed/-I_jE0l7sYQ https://www.youtube.com/embed/-I_jE0l7sYQ [2] https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/erlang/ https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/erlang/
- revvx 8y ago
  Regarding the "!! Select text -> type in correction -> people see change.", he was putting that in motion with his personal blog: https://joearms.github.io/ https://joearms.github.io/
- macintux 8y ago
  When I first learned about Erlang, using it to implement tuple spaces was what immediately came to mind. I need to get back to that idea. Thanks for sharing that. I've effectively abandoned Twitter but I need to go re-read his timeline once I think I can do it without too much sorrow.
ch4s3 8y ago
What an incredible guy. I’ve interacted with him and Robert briefly on the Elixir forums a few times, and I can’t think of anyone more giving, humble, and insightful. His presence will truly be missed.
tmountain 8y ago
Truly heartbreaking. One of my favorite computer scientists of all time. Loved his perspective on all things programming. So much wit, and such a vibrant and wonderful guy. Joe, you will be missed.
janvdberg 8y ago
I only recently came across his Twitter account and started following him (he had some interesting ideas about and experiments with TiddlyWiki). He seemed like a passionate and enthusiastic technology lover, which was a good enough reason to follow him. And it is only just a few minutes ago that I discovered that Joe is the guy with the moustache from the famous Erlang: The Movie video…. I had not pieced those two things together. So I knew nothing about his history, just one little thing he was working on/interested in. That may make me seem ignorant, but I share this because it goes to show that the light that shines in people like Joe was a genuine light of curiosity and sharing. Bright enough to attract people like me.
tpl 8y ago
A sad day indeed. I thank him and his coworkers for the platform I work with day to day. He will be missed. RIP
plainOldText 8y ago
Joe Armstrong was an exemplary hacker: passionate, practical, insightful. Erlang is a testament to this. He kept programming and tinkering until the very end. He’s up there with Alan Kay, in my book. Rest In Peace Joe. You’ll surely be missed.
svrtknst 8y ago
Sad to hear this. I've begun picking up some Erlang, mostly Elixir over the past few years, and have watched (and watched and watched and re-watched) most of his various (brilliant) talks, all of which are eye-opening. Aside from his technical skill and knowledge, he seemed like a really gret person with an undying sense of humor and humility.
- endgame 8y ago
  And with you and others sharing stories of that humor and humility, it will truly be undying.
rlander 8y ago
This is devastating. I’m in shock. Joe was one of my programming heroes and it was one of my goals to, one day, see one of his talks in person. He was incredibly articulate, good-humored and didactic in his posts on the Erlang list. He will be very much missed.
brightball 8y ago
Joe had to be the most engaging, famous developer I’ve ever heard of. Very sad day. He was so supportive of the Elixir community and a true blessing to the people who were able to learn from him.
iLemming 8y ago
What the fuck? He didn't look very old or too sick. Oh I know what. On one of the interviews a couple years ago he said people showed him IntelliJ and he was impressed and decided to try. Switching from Emacs killed Joe Armstrong
oetkerz 8y ago
F
agumonkey 8y ago
wow this one is sad.. why cosmos, why ?
tomjen3 8y ago
I am beginning to hate that black bar more and more.
hsavit1 8y ago
We are all workers, and Joe was our Supervisor
durandal1 8y ago
Possibly the most influential person in my programming career. Always curious, always full with ideas, but never lacking a pragmatic approach to the real world.
michaelfeathers 8y ago
Last year, I was at a conference giving a talk about error handling and Joe Armstrong was in the audience. I went through a bunch of strategies for mitigation and handling of errors and Joe yelled from the back "just let it crash! just let it crash!" I had to reply, "but we're not all using Erlang yet."
ecthiender 8y ago
This was really unexpected! I follow him on twitter and he was tweeting about FPGAs, which seems like, only few days back! I am grieved.
jacquesm 8y ago
The one guy who knew how to turn software into actual engineering.
tombert 8y ago
Years ago I emailed Joe Armstrong about concurrency stuff. I had no idea about anything like multithreaded programming or distributed systems or anything like that, but I had read Erlang was a language well-suited for that stuff. I sent an email asking some seriously noobey questions about concurrency (about why mutation was bad, what made the Actor model work, etc), and instead of a response like "Go read a book and stop bothering me", he responded back with an incredibly long, well-written email explaining a lot of the minutia of how Erlang avoids a lot of pitfalls and generic concurrency theory. He was really good about explaining things in a way simple-enough for me to understand, without coming off as patronizing or rude. About a year later I got a job doing Erlang, and I sent him another email telling him this, saying something to the effect of "sorry for bothering you a year ago, but your email was really helpful to me". His response was basically "You have nothing to apologize for! I've always thought it was important to help people asking questions, especially early in their career". I can honestly say that his kindness and patience changed my life for the better. If he hadn't held my hand a bit to make distributed systems make sense to me, there's a very high likelihood that I would still be writing Flash applications for a Tae Kwon Do studio. RIP Joe, you will be missed.
- anirudhan 8y ago
  I am interested in what he replied back on how Erlang avoids the common pitfalls? Would it be possible to post about it?
  - tombert 8y ago
    Basically, he explained that shared-memory systems simply don't make sense for distributed programs. It was years ago, but I believe he said something to the effect of "imagine that there's a server in Europe, and a server in America. Where does that shared memory exist?? Shared memory violates the laws of physics!" He then explained that since Erlang processes don't share any memory, and the only way for them to communicate is via message-passing, there's no need for locks or anything like that.
    - jamesblonde 8y ago
anthony_doan 8y ago
What the hell. I'm so sad and shock. He just became mod at elixirforum.com
whitepoplar 8y ago
Joe was such a kind person and was one of the few role models I had (I'm not a role model type of person, so this is saying a lot). You'll be missed more than you know, Joe. Rest in peace.
mercer 8y ago
I got really into Elixir/Erlang a while ago, and it made me love programming again. One of the first 'useful' things I built was to scratch a personal itch: tracking all the comments on HN that I've read and, with a bit of JS, highlighting any new comments. Erlang, OTP and Elixir were pretty new to me, and on top of that I built everything in a rush. The code is messy, naive, and the whole thing barely works. Over time I've added some other Applications (in the Elixir/Erlang sense of the word) that scratch various other itches. Most of that code is also pretty shit. The fact that the whole thing has been chugging along for over a year, with no restarts or crashing the entire system, is a regular reminder to me of Armstrong and the "let it crash" philosophy. I sometimes log in to the server and face a wall of red because the happy path wasn't followed, and instead of having to fix the bug and start the thing up, I can just forget about it. Or I fix the bug, enter recompile() in the interactive console, and get on with my day. I'm not exaggerating when I say that seeing how my duct-taped-together contraption chugs along and keeps doing its job gives me a small sense of joy every single time I SSH into the server, and it motivates me to get better at all this so I can do the same on "MongoDB level web scale". And it's not just Armstrong's work. His openness and participation on the Elixir forums, his 'stamp of approval', so to speak, as well as his talks, played a big role in my decision to get into Elixir/OTP.
Jedi72 8y ago
Goodbye, Joe.
uxcolumbo 8y ago
Such sad news... he seemed like a real top bloke. I've uploaded an image of him with the quote shared by Jah https://imgur.com/a/93X2hFG https://imgur.com/a/93X2hFG
dpapathanasiou 8y ago
And it was just over ten years ago when Erlang took over the front page of hacker news in a flash prank: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=512145 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=512145 Unfortunately, I cannot find a screenshot or archived view now (web.archive.org took a capture on March 10th, and not again until the 14th).
- giancarlostoro 8y ago
  That is pretty awesome, and I love the fact he had to come back and say, no seriously guys, I was just kidding, no need to flood Erlang. Man I swear Erlang is highly underrated. I've not had the pleasure of building much with it, only read through parts of the book by Joe and kept up with some of his blogs and posts from time to time. Anybody who loves servers should really pay attention to his work.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- mercer 8y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2009-03-11 https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2009-03-11 perhaps?
lovehashbrowns 8y ago
I'm another person that learned about Erlang through Elixir. Never got to talk to Joe Armstrong in person. But I do want to acknowledge that his work with Erlang, via Elixir, has given me the opportunity and hope of becoming an entrepreneur this year. I'm thankful for what he has given to the world. Thank you, Joe Armstrong, rest in peace. ️
accnumnplus1 8y ago
The black bar usually indicates the passing of someone I'm not especially familiar with. When I looked down the page and saw Joe's name I was really caught off guard. I never met him but followed him and the Erlang scene long enough to know we've lost someone special.
Mugwort 8y ago
Farewell Joe, That we might be as good to others as you have been good to us and lead by example. RIP
chj 8y ago
This is a shock. I have been following his twitter and all is looking well. Learned a lot from his erlang paper. Wish I had the courage to write him an email and thank him. I can't believe it.
RickJWagner 8y ago
Sad to hear this. I read the book and really enjoyed it. Joe's writing style was humorous, informative and brief. We'll miss him.
johnzim 8y ago
No! Without question one of the finest computer scientists I have ever met. Fearlessly independent and willing to try anything and everything. Edit: the thing I loved most about him was that he was brilliant but also kind. A living breathing rebuttal to the idea that it’s alright to be an asshole in this field if you’re smart enough. There is no excuse in this world for meanness.
wyatwerp 8y ago
He sounded like a wonderful person in terms of ideas, communication & empathy. I feel sadder than on the day Alan Kay passed. To those with whom I share the morbid curiosity about how it happened, I'd like to mention a movie ending that came to mind. Griever: Tell me how he died. Friend: I will tell you how he lived.
- alankay 8y ago
  Rumors of my passing have been greatly exaggerated!
  - alankay 8y ago
    P.S. Joe and I have had the most wonderful conversations, right up to a few months ago. We'll miss him terribly and remember him vividly!
    - wyatwerp 8y ago
      Foot in mouth there! For that, I apologize as profusely as possible online. P.S: FWIW, I was thinking of John McCarthy there, must have gotten confused by recalling Joe Armstrong's interview with Alan Kay. I am also a big fan of Alan Kay, landing up at Erlang's doorstep after playing a little with Squeak.
alankay 8y ago
What a wonderful spirit he was, never to be forgotten
alankay 8y ago
What a wonderful spirit he was, never to be forgotten. We had lots of great interactions over the years, and he greatly enriched computing with his ideas and actions.
ykevinator 8y ago
Who is he?
thr0w__4w4y 8y ago
I've known about Erlang for at least 20 years, but I never took the time to learn about it. After reading about it, and more importantly after reading user "tombert"'s interaction with Joe Armstrong, I think I'm beginning to understand the significance of our loss of him. Godspeed, Joe. You set a high bar for many of us to aim for. Your patience, kindness and desire to help and spread knowledge is truly inspirational.
zubairq 8y ago
Joe Armstrong's work on Erlang and OTP ended up inspiring a whole generation, and now Kubernetes and Istio are very much based on his work

1928 points by okket 8y ago

rkachowski 8y ago

rip joe. sorry that your last tweet was in reply to my trolling.

collinvandyck76 8y ago
i just looked up this interaction. you seemed well intended enough :)

sjtgraham 8y ago

Very sad news. Thank you to HN mods for commemorating Joe's passing with the black bar. His contribution to our world is immeasurable. Although I never had the pleasure of meeting him in person, by all accounts he was much loved. Joe you will be missed.

mises 8y ago
For those of us who haven't seen it before, would you please explain what this means? I assume it is some sort of sign of mourning?
- ufo 8y ago
  It is exactly what you guessed.
  - noir_lord 8y ago
    I like the black bar, it shows both mourning and respect. Occasionally I'll see the black bar and the notice and not even know who the person was - at which point I get to find out about someone amazing I didn't know existed and to appreciate their contribution. Obviously I'd prefer that there not need to be a black bar though.
- steveklabnik 8y ago
  It’s done any time someone “with significance to the community” dies. I’m not sure when it started but it’s been a thing for many years. Feels extremely appropriate to me, and honestly, it was the first thing I looked for after I saw a tweet about this. RIP, Joe :(
  - _asummers 8y ago
    RIP Joe indeed. He will be sorely missed as a pillar of the BEAM community. Not to diverge too far, but does anyone know who the first black bar was?
    - steveklabnik 8y ago
      I tried to use the search and couldn’t find anything authoritative.

davidw 8y ago

Francesco is encouraging people to share their memories of Joe: https://twitter.com/FrancescoC/status/1119604272000315394?s=19 https://twitter.com/FrancescoC/status/1119604272000315394?s=...

dhuramas 8y ago

A great loss to the community. Even though I don’t use Erlang, I’ve always been enamored by it’s unique features. Black Ribbon please.

1f60c 8y ago
It seems like the black ribbon has now been added to the site.
- em-bee 8y ago
  it would be nice if the black bar or some added keyword in the title could link to this discussion thread to make it easier to find.

kozak 8y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Armstrong_(programmer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Armstrong_(programmer)

lucb1e 8y ago
Thanks, I had no idea who this is.
toomuchtodo 8y ago
Would anyone be able to suggest a quality photo of Joe to use for his Wikipedia page? I will be spending some time this weekend improving his page.
- augustl 8y ago
  This photoshop by Bodil Stokke is the obvious choice. https://twitter.com/bodil/status/1119644170816303104 https://twitter.com/bodil/status/1119644170816303104
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- ignoramous 8y ago
  Joe's twitter gallery has a some nice ones that you might need to adapt for wikipedia (not sure about the license, though): 1. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DBs4Q53XkAI6yKd.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DBs4Q53XkAI6yKd.jpg 2. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAs_wqVXsAEvTor.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAs_wqVXsAEvTor.jpg 3. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ds19NLdXgAAMXho.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ds19NLdXgAAMXho.jpg
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    Thank you.

diginux 8y ago

RIP Joe. Every interaction I had with you in the past was always a great time. You'll be missed, but never forgotten. Thanks for everything you've done for the Erlang community and distributed systems design.

flocial 8y ago

This is indeed sad news (I feel he deserves the black bar of mourning once confirmed). Although Elixir gets the most attention these days the solid engineering of BEAM is the foundation that Elixir is built on.

jeremyjh 8y ago
Joe was also a part of the Elixir community. He learned the language early on and participated in the mailing list and forums. Actually, he had just very recently become an admin at elixirforum.com. I will really miss him.
- flocial 8y ago
  His "now for the tricky bit" talk was not only funny but thought provoking. He was kind and very open minded. Thanks for pointing this out.
MagicPropmaker 8y ago
Candy-coated Elixir, which tries to hide concepts that are difficult for people who approach programming without the requisite mathematical skills, may be getting most of the attention, but serious mission-critical "nine-nines" projects are still being done in Erlang. I program in Erlang every day for a system that can't (and doesn't) have any downtime.
- eropple 8y ago
  Please don't do this sort of thing. It's crass and it's wrong besides.
  - pmarreck 8y ago
    Appeal to disgust fallacy. Let people mourn how they will.
  - MagicPropmaker 8y ago
    It’s not crass to honor Joe’s legacy. It’s on topic and relevant.

tzar 8y ago

–Hello Mike –Hello Joe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKfKtXYLG78&t=2m7s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKfKtXYLG78&t=2m7s

Carpetsmoker 8y ago
I will never understand why Armstrong didn't pursue a career in acting.
andrewchambers 8y ago
Goodbye Joe
badosu 8y ago
I rewatched this so many times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRbY3TMUcgQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRbY3TMUcgQ
- vaylian 8y ago
  For context: This is the unofficial sequal to the official Erlang movie. Updated for people from the future. Definitely worth a watch.
  - davidw 8y ago
    Many of his videos are worth a watch: https://www.youtube.com/user/gar1t/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/gar1t/videos The 'MongoDB is web scale' one is pretty funny and was widely watched shared in the day. I wish he'd make some more videos.
- pmarreck 8y ago
  This will be incredibly funny for certain people (like myself)
- usermac 8y ago
  "...I'm interested in what the little girl has to say" OMG that line made me laugh out loud. thanks for sharing the link.

dpeck 8y ago

That is so sad, he was in his late 60s and it seemed like he had a lot of life left in him, talking about how software can get better and having a great (and sometimes snarky) outlook on the profession. Highly recommend his thesis (2003) and a few of his great interviews/presentations for anyone who isn’t familiar with Joe, it captures a lot of what he thought about and pushed for in his professional life. http://erlang.org/download/armstrong_thesis_2003.pdf http://erlang.org/download/armstrong_thesis_2003.pdf https://youtu.be/fhOHn9TClXY https://youtu.be/fhOHn9TClXY https://youtu.be/lKXe3HUG2l4 https://youtu.be/lKXe3HUG2l4 https://youtu.be/rmueBVrLKcY https://youtu.be/rmueBVrLKcY I hope his family and friends can find some comfort in how much he was appreciated and admired in the development community.

nextos 8y ago
I came here to say the same thing. His thesis is extremely readable and illuminating on the topic of reliable distributed systems.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  It goes much further than that, it shows how to tackle reliability even in systems that are not distributed. The primary insight is that all software will be buggy so you need to bake reliability in from day one by assuming your work product will contain faults.
  - nextos 8y ago
    Yes, I know. Erlang was not distributed till 1991, roughly 5 years after it was born. It's also really illuminating how they implemented the first versions of Erlang as a reified Prolog [1]. But that is not explained in the thesis, just in his 1992 paper which he briefly cites. [1] https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=F47FE951F0EE95C02E755CF55F15033F?doi=10.1.1.34.3972&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=F4...
masklinn 8y ago
> That is so sad, he seemed like he had a lot of life left in him talking about how software can get better and having a great (and sometimes snarky) outlook on the profession. I'm in actual shock, he was tweeting about pretty much that (also brexit and playing with his phone's voice recognition) just 2 weeks ago… He wasn't even 70…

tosh 8y ago

Just re-watched his Strangeloop talk: “The mess we’re in”. Still so spot on. He will be dearly missed. https://youtube.com/watch?v=lKXe3HUG2l4 https://youtube.com/watch?v=lKXe3HUG2l4

HenryBemis 8y ago
Now that is a beautifl mind!!
nickjj 8y ago
I just watched that for the first time the other day. Such a good talk.
octosphere 8y ago
Always liked his reference to GruntJS[0] [0] https://gruntjs.com/ https://gruntjs.com/
blacksqr 8y ago
"And then we've got this sort of dichotomy between efficiency and clarity. You know, to make something clearer, you add a layer of abstraction and to make it more efficient you remove a layer of abstraction. So go for the clarity bit. Wait ten years and it will be a thousand times faster, you want it a million times faster, wait 20 years."
- solipsism 8y ago
  That's... one way to make something clearer. It's also a way to hide complexity behind leaky facades. "Just add a layer of abstraction" is horrible advice.
fjni 8y ago
“It said I didn’t have grunt installed. So I googled a bit, and I found out what grunt was. Grunt is ... I still don’t really know what it is.” Delivered that line with perfect timing and humility. What a great sense of humor!
a_c 8y ago

wintorez 8y ago

Unbelievable. Such a sad day.

feniv 8y ago

I've only recently started learning Erlang (via Elixir), but I'm absolutely amazed by the underlying technology and the brilliant minds behind it. I'll remember Joe by the several insightful, entertaining talks he's given in recent years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKXe3HUG2l4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKXe3HUG2l4 in particular.

1f60c 8y ago

Very sad. My condolences to his family, friends and everyone who knew him.

alexgaribay 8y ago

This is incredibly saddening. Joe has left an incredible legacy for us to continue on. I'm saddened that I never got to meet him and thank him for all that he has done.

sankoz 8y ago

I was following him on Twitter, and it was always amazing that a genius like him took the time to respond to people on Twitter with insightful comments. Showed what a great human being he was. RIP Joe.

mml 8y ago
same. i had some interaction with him on twitter, years ago, and somehow he wound up following me(!). RIP Joe.
why-el 8y ago
Not just that, but he also struggled in public with things we all struggle with, often with incredible humor. His struggles with Grunt.js come to mind. His humanity and charisma was in full force, and you can tell he worked in full grace and gratitude. His work of course is a testament to this.

jacktang 8y ago

RIP. Thank you for Erlang, the great programming language, it saves me a lot of time. And thank you for the book: Programming Erlang. It guides me to think the programming world in different, interesting, and simpler way.

apoorvgarg 8y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37wFVVVZlVU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37wFVVVZlVU This recent panel (Armstrong, Hewitt and Hoare) discussion on concurrency was the first time I got to know about him and it gave me a lot of food for thought.

jchristopherinc 8y ago

You will be duly missed, Joe. Thanks for giving us Erlang.

blockchainman 8y ago

RIP JOE ! We will miss you !

filleokus 8y ago

I first learnt about Joe from this music video (based on Erlang: The Movie, I believe): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1LjmDCOM-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1LjmDCOM-8 Afterwards looked up talks by him and was fascinated by Erlang, sad to see him pass away.

pmarreck 8y ago
Never saw this, love it!

butterisgood 8y ago

He’ll be missed!

charlysl 8y ago

I really like this talk of his, he was an amazing speaker: "Computing: The first 100 years" https://youtu.be/itKFrXghGuA https://youtu.be/itKFrXghGuA

dberg 8y ago

I met Joe in 2012 when I spoke at the Erlang Conf in SF. he is the reason I discovered functional programming and the whole concept of message passing (actor model) in distributed systems. Quite a legend and contributor to the world of computer science. RIP joe.

imglorp 8y ago
I also met him at a conference in '16. He gave a talk but mostly wanted to shoot the breeze in the hallway with fellow hackers. He lamented scheduling gripes with his PM, being a slave to Jira, and some new things he was playing with. Very approachable and humble. He asked a few of us hanging around what talks we were thinking of attending and we agreed to check out something about concurrency in some modernish platform. The speaker was working on issues with handling failures, message passing, memory management, etc, but then realized Joe was in the back and pointed out it had all been solved many years ago by that guy over there. Everyone laughed and gave Joe the acknowledgement. I don't feel like we've finished learning from and building on his work. RIP.

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armitron 8y ago

Life is short and Joe went much younger than one would expect. When I find myself doing something that I do not enjoy, I'm always trying to meditate to the moment of my future-death in order to psychologically slap myself in the face and re-evaluate what it is that I'm doing. We only get so many years and we should strive to use them to the best of our ability and potential. Joe Armstrong certainly did that. RIP.

jwatzman 8y ago

Back in 2015, I somehow ended up as part of a panel discussion at the end of a conference. The panel was going to include Joe Armstrong, Don Syme (inventor of F#), Tony Hoare (!), and myself (a nobody compared to any of them). During the conference, I wanted to meet each of the other folks on the panel, and ended up in a somewhat lengthy conversation with Joe Armstrong -- mostly about Erlang, but at some point the panel itself came up. I mentioned how nervous I was; me, sitting on a panel with such other esteemed and brilliant folks -- of course referring to all of the other people on the panel, including Joe Armstrong himself. I'll never forget his response: "yeah, me too! Wow, Tony Hoare, seriously?!" I'm not sure if he deliberately misunderstood me or not, but it definitely put me more at ease, realising that there's always someone bigger, even for the folks you see as bigger than you! So sad to learn of his passing. RIP.

noblethrasher 8y ago
Not at all hard to believe that he was sincere. He seemed to be pretty starstruck when he was interviewing Alan Kay on stage just three years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhOHn9TClXY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhOHn9TClXY.
- codyb 8y ago
  And his twitter @joeerl [0] which I feel unfortunate to have just discovered today is filled with him discovering emojis and dictation, talking up the joys of letters, and discussing FPGAs. It’s sad to hear of his passing, and rewarding to see he was just as kind and curious as you could ever hope to be even just this month. [0] - https://mobile.twitter.com/joeerl https://mobile.twitter.com/joeerl
- vanderZwan 8y ago
  I was about to share this youtube channel, it has lots of wonderful videos with him - this particular one is a great example.
ahmedalsudani 8y ago
Joe always seemed like a super approachable and super humble guy. I never interacted with him but he always left a good taste in my mouth whenever I watched him on video--which happened quite often in the period during which I was obsessed with Erlang. It's a sad day...

brador 8y ago

Anyone know what he died of/from?

pmarreck 8y ago
Glad I’m not the only one who wants to know
- narendraj9 8y ago
  Yes, what exactly happened to him?
  - pmarreck 8y ago
    Pulmonary fibrosis.
comboy 8y ago
I keep refreshing looking for the answer. Seems that it would be the top question for somebody who was 30. He was 68 but he had way more energy than many 20 year olds that I see. I'm deeply sad. Despite being absolutely brilliant he was also extremely positive and full of humility. It's a rare combination.
rapsey 8y ago
Since it was sudden, a stroke of some sort is generally the case.
- bobowzki 8y ago
  He was normally very active on twitter but I noticed he hasn't posted since the 10th of April, that's 10 days ago.. I guess it's only human nature to want to know what happened when someone you admired suddenly passed away.
asveikau 8y ago
I'm always curious about these things because if it's something medical that might be preventable or that has some nonprofits raising funds for, etc., then that can increase awareness. But I can understand if people don't always rush to talk about it.

keymone 8y ago

Erlang was the entry into functional paradigm that clicked with me. Thank you Joe, for that and much more. RIP

MagicPropmaker 8y ago

One of the most charming, smart, funny, and well-rounded people I've ever met.

kaonashi 8y ago

Had the privilege of hearing him talk a couple times. While I didn't know him personally, I will feel his absence.

the_trapper 8y ago

Thank you Joe for all of your contributions! You will be missed.

adamnemecek 8y ago

World would be different without you.

jah 8y ago

One of my favorite quotes from Joe: “Make it work, then make it beautiful, then if you really, really have to, make it fast. 90% of the time, if you make it beautiful, it will already be fast. So really, just make it beautiful!”

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tluyben2 8y ago

Very sad. One of the few people who did not compromise on quality.

isatty 8y ago

Rest In Peace, Joe. I’m surprised and ashamed that I have not heard about him but thanks to the HN community for posting links to his thesis and talks. Wonderfully approachable and a great guy.

djhworld 8y ago

This is devastating, RIP. I watched this talk a few months ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmueBVrLKcY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmueBVrLKcY called "Computer Science - A Guide for the Perplexed" It was superb, I think it's unfortunate that he had to rush through it because of time constraints, his anecdotes and delivery were really engaging and funny.

m2mdas2 8y ago

5 or 6 years ago I saw a presentation of Joe in Infoq. There he said "solution of the dining philosophers problem is to give fork to everyone". It really made me interested in actor based system. Now here I am, building financial system in java where akka is the vital component of the system. Thank you very much Joe. Rest in peace.

namelosw 8y ago

This is so sad. RIP Joe. I'll miss him so much. Erlang is one of the most Perlis languages for me. I'm always a little bit cynical and think Erlang deserve more attention. Several months ago Joe post this tweet about a game company refused to tell other people they are using Erlang. https://twitter.com/joeerl/status/1104298407231922176 https://twitter.com/joeerl/status/1104298407231922176 I just watched his great talk last year not long ago - The Forgotten Ideas in Computer Science: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I_jE0l7sYQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I_jE0l7sYQ

revvx 8y ago

From the day I learned about his work he became my greatest influence in my career, and still is to this day. I'm grateful for all the insights and the perpetually fresh perspective, on distributed systems, on PL research, on databases and on OOP. I'm grateful that I have someone like him to look up to in my profession: able to solve hard problems while still having fun with novel solutions, while still keeping it all simple. We'll take at least 20 years just to catch up with him.

Existenceblinks 8y ago

I remember his joke .. Erlang is "write once, run forever". Fascinating. The BEAM will run forever since there are also other languages compiled to it.

RaymondDurk 8y ago

Please down vote this. This was a hoax.

justinzollars 8y ago

How we program multicores: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo5WL5IQAd0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo5WL5IQAd0

pmarreck 8y ago

I’m shocked by this. Thank you for saving me from OOP, Joe. (via Elixir) May your hypothetical soul have as much uptime as your systems did.

tibyat 8y ago

too much to ask to include what he’s known for in the title?

macintux 8y ago

Absolutely devastating. Joe was so full of life, consumed by curiosity. I had the pleasure of escorting him around Chicago during an Erlang conference several years ago, and I still have in my Reminders app to look up a water painter named Zorn that he recommended highly as we tried to find our way to some building or another. He’s also, I believe, my only LinkedIn contact. I opened a new account a couple of years ago when Basho was winding down, but I strongly dislike the service and didn’t do anything with it...but when Joe found me and added me, I had to approve that, obviously. Godspeed Joe. I’m sure if the interface between this world and the next is in need of debugging, you’re the man for the job.

estomagordo 8y ago
Now is a good time to look up Anders Zorn. He was perhaps the most esteemed Swedish painter during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

navyad 8y ago

Hearing Joe's talks on various topics of computing are thrilling. Long live Erlang and Elixir.

zaph0d_ 8y ago

This is absolutely devastating! His talk "The Mess We're In" was one of those talks which were incredibly funny and informative at the same time. I absolutely lost it, when he told the story of the single comment his coworker put into the Erlang code.[1] Rest in peace! [1] https://youtu.be/lKXe3HUG2l4?t=630 https://youtu.be/lKXe3HUG2l4?t=630

dominicl 8y ago

So sad. Humble, open minded genius. I was hugely impressed the first time I learned about Erlang and impressed again when I saw how welcoming and open minded he approached Elixir and it's community. A great man has left the planet :-(

tlrobinson 8y ago

Erlang was one of the first interesting languages I learned after the “basics” (C, C++, Java, JavaScript, etc) and even though I never actually used it for anything real, just learning it opened my eyes to a bunch of concepts that have been useful over the years.

pjmlp 8y ago

I always enjoyed watching his talks. My feelings to friends and family.

codr7 8y ago

So long Joe, and thanks for coming here and doing your thing. Erlang changed my way of thinking in several ways, a quick glance at some of my own creations [0] makes that pretty obvious. [0] https://github.com/codr7/g-fu#tasks https://github.com/codr7/g-fu#tasks

garyhbutton 8y ago

RIP

ipsum2 8y ago

If people aren't aware, Joe's blog is full of interesting tidbits: https://joearms.github.io/#Index https://joearms.github.io/#Index. I remember reading this one in particular: https://joearms.github.io/#2015-03-12%20The%20web%20of%20names%2C%20hashes%20and%20UUIDs https://joearms.github.io/#2015-03-12%20The%20web%20of%20nam...

ignoramous 8y ago

Devastating. I'd like to point out a recent tweet @joeerl shared [0][1] that contained things he felt were good wisdom but lost over time: -- Ideas that we forgot: 1. Flow based programming. 2. Pipes. 3. Linda Tuple Spaces. 4. Hypertext (=/= HTML). Computer Science 101: 1. Observational equivalence. 2. Isolation. 3. Composition. 4. Causality. 5. Physics. Two papers to read: 1. The Emperor's Old Clothes - ACM. 2. A Plea for Lean Software - Nikalus Wirth. Two videos to watch: 1. The Computer Revolution Hasn't Happened Yet - Alan Kay. 2. Computers for Cynics - Ted Nelson. Four old tools to learn: Emacs, Bash, Make, Shell. Three books to read: 1. Algorithms + Data Structure = Programs. 2. The Mythical Man Month. 3. How to Win Friends and Influence People. Correct a typo: ?? Learn git -> locate program that creates page -> locate typo -> correct -> send push [sic] request. !! Select text -> type in correction -> people see change. Two projects: 1. Link to content hash not a name (request content by sha256, immune to pepole in the middle). 2. Elastic Links (links should not break if you move an endpoint). -- Easily one of the best thinkers of his generation [2]. RIP. [0] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ds19oHnXoAAwlAp.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ds19oHnXoAAwlAp.jpg [1] https://www.youtube.com/embed/-I_jE0l7sYQ https://www.youtube.com/embed/-I_jE0l7sYQ [2] https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/erlang/ https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/erlang/

revvx 8y ago
Regarding the "!! Select text -> type in correction -> people see change.", he was putting that in motion with his personal blog: https://joearms.github.io/ https://joearms.github.io/
macintux 8y ago
When I first learned about Erlang, using it to implement tuple spaces was what immediately came to mind. I need to get back to that idea. Thanks for sharing that. I've effectively abandoned Twitter but I need to go re-read his timeline once I think I can do it without too much sorrow.

ch4s3 8y ago

What an incredible guy. I’ve interacted with him and Robert briefly on the Elixir forums a few times, and I can’t think of anyone more giving, humble, and insightful. His presence will truly be missed.

tmountain 8y ago

Truly heartbreaking. One of my favorite computer scientists of all time. Loved his perspective on all things programming. So much wit, and such a vibrant and wonderful guy. Joe, you will be missed.

janvdberg 8y ago

I only recently came across his Twitter account and started following him (he had some interesting ideas about and experiments with TiddlyWiki). He seemed like a passionate and enthusiastic technology lover, which was a good enough reason to follow him. And it is only just a few minutes ago that I discovered that Joe is the guy with the moustache from the famous Erlang: The Movie video…. I had not pieced those two things together. So I knew nothing about his history, just one little thing he was working on/interested in. That may make me seem ignorant, but I share this because it goes to show that the light that shines in people like Joe was a genuine light of curiosity and sharing. Bright enough to attract people like me.

tpl 8y ago

A sad day indeed. I thank him and his coworkers for the platform I work with day to day. He will be missed. RIP

plainOldText 8y ago

Joe Armstrong was an exemplary hacker: passionate, practical, insightful. Erlang is a testament to this. He kept programming and tinkering until the very end. He’s up there with Alan Kay, in my book. Rest In Peace Joe. You’ll surely be missed.

svrtknst 8y ago

Sad to hear this. I've begun picking up some Erlang, mostly Elixir over the past few years, and have watched (and watched and watched and re-watched) most of his various (brilliant) talks, all of which are eye-opening. Aside from his technical skill and knowledge, he seemed like a really gret person with an undying sense of humor and humility.

endgame 8y ago
And with you and others sharing stories of that humor and humility, it will truly be undying.

rlander 8y ago

This is devastating. I’m in shock. Joe was one of my programming heroes and it was one of my goals to, one day, see one of his talks in person. He was incredibly articulate, good-humored and didactic in his posts on the Erlang list. He will be very much missed.

brightball 8y ago

Joe had to be the most engaging, famous developer I’ve ever heard of. Very sad day. He was so supportive of the Elixir community and a true blessing to the people who were able to learn from him.

iLemming 8y ago

What the fuck? He didn't look very old or too sick. Oh I know what. On one of the interviews a couple years ago he said people showed him IntelliJ and he was impressed and decided to try. Switching from Emacs killed Joe Armstrong

oetkerz 8y ago

agumonkey 8y ago

wow this one is sad.. why cosmos, why ?

tomjen3 8y ago

I am beginning to hate that black bar more and more.

hsavit1 8y ago

We are all workers, and Joe was our Supervisor

durandal1 8y ago

Possibly the most influential person in my programming career. Always curious, always full with ideas, but never lacking a pragmatic approach to the real world.

michaelfeathers 8y ago

Last year, I was at a conference giving a talk about error handling and Joe Armstrong was in the audience. I went through a bunch of strategies for mitigation and handling of errors and Joe yelled from the back "just let it crash! just let it crash!" I had to reply, "but we're not all using Erlang yet."

ecthiender 8y ago

This was really unexpected! I follow him on twitter and he was tweeting about FPGAs, which seems like, only few days back! I am grieved.

jacquesm 8y ago

The one guy who knew how to turn software into actual engineering.

tombert 8y ago

Years ago I emailed Joe Armstrong about concurrency stuff. I had no idea about anything like multithreaded programming or distributed systems or anything like that, but I had read Erlang was a language well-suited for that stuff. I sent an email asking some seriously noobey questions about concurrency (about why mutation was bad, what made the Actor model work, etc), and instead of a response like "Go read a book and stop bothering me", he responded back with an incredibly long, well-written email explaining a lot of the minutia of how Erlang avoids a lot of pitfalls and generic concurrency theory. He was really good about explaining things in a way simple-enough for me to understand, without coming off as patronizing or rude. About a year later I got a job doing Erlang, and I sent him another email telling him this, saying something to the effect of "sorry for bothering you a year ago, but your email was really helpful to me". His response was basically "You have nothing to apologize for! I've always thought it was important to help people asking questions, especially early in their career". I can honestly say that his kindness and patience changed my life for the better. If he hadn't held my hand a bit to make distributed systems make sense to me, there's a very high likelihood that I would still be writing Flash applications for a Tae Kwon Do studio. RIP Joe, you will be missed.

anirudhan 8y ago
I am interested in what he replied back on how Erlang avoids the common pitfalls? Would it be possible to post about it?
- tombert 8y ago
  Basically, he explained that shared-memory systems simply don't make sense for distributed programs. It was years ago, but I believe he said something to the effect of "imagine that there's a server in Europe, and a server in America. Where does that shared memory exist?? Shared memory violates the laws of physics!" He then explained that since Erlang processes don't share any memory, and the only way for them to communicate is via message-passing, there's no need for locks or anything like that.
  - jamesblonde 8y ago

anthony_doan 8y ago

What the hell. I'm so sad and shock. He just became mod at elixirforum.com

whitepoplar 8y ago

Joe was such a kind person and was one of the few role models I had (I'm not a role model type of person, so this is saying a lot). You'll be missed more than you know, Joe. Rest in peace.

mercer 8y ago

I got really into Elixir/Erlang a while ago, and it made me love programming again. One of the first 'useful' things I built was to scratch a personal itch: tracking all the comments on HN that I've read and, with a bit of JS, highlighting any new comments. Erlang, OTP and Elixir were pretty new to me, and on top of that I built everything in a rush. The code is messy, naive, and the whole thing barely works. Over time I've added some other Applications (in the Elixir/Erlang sense of the word) that scratch various other itches. Most of that code is also pretty shit. The fact that the whole thing has been chugging along for over a year, with no restarts or crashing the entire system, is a regular reminder to me of Armstrong and the "let it crash" philosophy. I sometimes log in to the server and face a wall of red because the happy path wasn't followed, and instead of having to fix the bug and start the thing up, I can just forget about it. Or I fix the bug, enter recompile() in the interactive console, and get on with my day. I'm not exaggerating when I say that seeing how my duct-taped-together contraption chugs along and keeps doing its job gives me a small sense of joy every single time I SSH into the server, and it motivates me to get better at all this so I can do the same on "MongoDB level web scale". And it's not just Armstrong's work. His openness and participation on the Elixir forums, his 'stamp of approval', so to speak, as well as his talks, played a big role in my decision to get into Elixir/OTP.

Jedi72 8y ago

Goodbye, Joe.

uxcolumbo 8y ago

Such sad news... he seemed like a real top bloke. I've uploaded an image of him with the quote shared by Jah https://imgur.com/a/93X2hFG https://imgur.com/a/93X2hFG

dpapathanasiou 8y ago

And it was just over ten years ago when Erlang took over the front page of hacker news in a flash prank: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=512145 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=512145 Unfortunately, I cannot find a screenshot or archived view now (web.archive.org took a capture on March 10th, and not again until the 14th).

giancarlostoro 8y ago
That is pretty awesome, and I love the fact he had to come back and say, no seriously guys, I was just kidding, no need to flood Erlang. Man I swear Erlang is highly underrated. I've not had the pleasure of building much with it, only read through parts of the book by Joe and kept up with some of his blogs and posts from time to time. Anybody who loves servers should really pay attention to his work.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
mercer 8y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2009-03-11 https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2009-03-11 perhaps?

lovehashbrowns 8y ago

I'm another person that learned about Erlang through Elixir. Never got to talk to Joe Armstrong in person. But I do want to acknowledge that his work with Erlang, via Elixir, has given me the opportunity and hope of becoming an entrepreneur this year. I'm thankful for what he has given to the world. Thank you, Joe Armstrong, rest in peace. ️

accnumnplus1 8y ago

The black bar usually indicates the passing of someone I'm not especially familiar with. When I looked down the page and saw Joe's name I was really caught off guard. I never met him but followed him and the Erlang scene long enough to know we've lost someone special.

Mugwort 8y ago

Farewell Joe, That we might be as good to others as you have been good to us and lead by example. RIP

chj 8y ago

This is a shock. I have been following his twitter and all is looking well. Learned a lot from his erlang paper. Wish I had the courage to write him an email and thank him. I can't believe it.

RickJWagner 8y ago

Sad to hear this. I read the book and really enjoyed it. Joe's writing style was humorous, informative and brief. We'll miss him.

johnzim 8y ago

No! Without question one of the finest computer scientists I have ever met. Fearlessly independent and willing to try anything and everything. Edit: the thing I loved most about him was that he was brilliant but also kind. A living breathing rebuttal to the idea that it’s alright to be an asshole in this field if you’re smart enough. There is no excuse in this world for meanness.

wyatwerp 8y ago

He sounded like a wonderful person in terms of ideas, communication & empathy. I feel sadder than on the day Alan Kay passed. To those with whom I share the morbid curiosity about how it happened, I'd like to mention a movie ending that came to mind. Griever: Tell me how he died. Friend: I will tell you how he lived.

alankay 8y ago
Rumors of my passing have been greatly exaggerated!
- alankay 8y ago
  P.S. Joe and I have had the most wonderful conversations, right up to a few months ago. We'll miss him terribly and remember him vividly!
  - wyatwerp 8y ago
    Foot in mouth there! For that, I apologize as profusely as possible online. P.S: FWIW, I was thinking of John McCarthy there, must have gotten confused by recalling Joe Armstrong's interview with Alan Kay. I am also a big fan of Alan Kay, landing up at Erlang's doorstep after playing a little with Squeak.

alankay 8y ago

What a wonderful spirit he was, never to be forgotten

alankay 8y ago

What a wonderful spirit he was, never to be forgotten. We had lots of great interactions over the years, and he greatly enriched computing with his ideas and actions.

ykevinator 8y ago

Who is he?

thr0w__4w4y 8y ago

I've known about Erlang for at least 20 years, but I never took the time to learn about it. After reading about it, and more importantly after reading user "tombert"'s interaction with Joe Armstrong, I think I'm beginning to understand the significance of our loss of him. Godspeed, Joe. You set a high bar for many of us to aim for. Your patience, kindness and desire to help and spread knowledge is truly inspirational.

zubairq 8y ago

Joe Armstrong's work on Erlang and OTP ended up inspiring a whole generation, and now Kubernetes and Istio are very much based on his work