Joe Armstrong (programmer)
{{short description|British computer scientist (1950–2019)}}
{{Lead too short|date=February 2023}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2017}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name =
| image = An erlang expert and some guy named Joe (4133214882).jpg
| caption = Armstrong in 2009
| birth_date = {{Birth date |1950|12|27|df=y}}
| birth_place = Bournemouth, England, UK
| death_date = {{Death date and age|2019|04|20|1950|12|27|df=y}}
| alma_mater = University College London, UK;
Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden
| occupation = Computer programmer, professor, author
| work_institution = University of Edinburgh
Ericsson Computer Science Lab
KTH
| known_for = Creating the Erlang programming language
| spouse = Helen Taylor
| children = Thomas Armstrong, Claire Armstrong
| awards =
| website = {{URL|https://joearms.github.io}}
}}
Joseph Leslie Armstrong (27 December 1950 – 20 April 2019) was a computer scientist working in the area of fault-tolerant distributed systems. He is best known as one of the co-designers of the Erlang programming language.
Early life and education
Armstrong was born in Bournemouth, England in 1950.{{cite interview |first=Joe |last=Armstrong |interviewer=Seibel, Peter |url=http://ivory.idyll.org/blog/coders-at-work-joe-armstrong.html |title=Excerpts from Coders At Work: Joe Armstrong Interview |work=Living in an Ivory Basement |publisher=Brown, C. Titus |date=29 April 2013 |accessdate=23 December 2017}}{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/may/08/joe-armstrong-obituary |title=Joe Armstrong obituary | first=Bjarne |last= Däcker |work=The Guardian |date=8 May 2019 | accessdate=6 September 2021}}
At 17, Armstrong began programming in Fortran on his local council's mainframe.
Armstrong graduated with a B.Sc. in Physics from University College London in 1972.
He received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden in 2003.{{cite web |url=http://www.erlang-factory.com/conference/ErlangUserConference2012/speakers/joearmstrong |title=Joe Armstrong: Father of Erlang |work=Erlang User Conference |publisher=Erlang Solutions Ltd. |date=2012 |accessdate=23 December 2017}} His dissertation was titled Making reliable distributed systems in the presence of software errors.{{cite thesis |type=PhD |first=Joe |last=Armstrong |date=December 2003 |title=Making reliable distributed systems in the presence of software errors |url=http://www.sics.se/~joe/thesis/armstrong_thesis_2003.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041204143417/http://www.sics.se/~joe/thesis/armstrong_thesis_2003.pdf |archive-date=4 December 2004 |publisher=Royal Institute of Technology |place=Stockholm}} He was a professor at KTH from 2014 until his death.
Career
After briefly working for Donald Michie at the University of Edinburgh, Armstrong moved to Sweden in 1974 and joined the Ericsson Computer Science Laboratory at Kista in 1984.
Peter Seibel wrote:
Originally a physicist, he switched to computer science when he ran out of money in the middle of his physics PhD and landed a job as a researcher working for Donald Michie — one of the founders of the field of artificial intelligence in Britain. At Michie's lab, Armstrong was exposed to the full range of AI goodies, becoming a founding member of the British Robotics Association and writing papers about robotic vision.When funding for AI dried up as a result of the famous Lighthill report, it was back to physics-related programming for more than half a decade, first at the EISCAT scientific association and later the Swedish Space Corporation, before finally joining the Ericsson Computer Science Lab where he invented Erlang.{{cite web |first=Peter |last=Seibel |url=http://www.codersatwork.com/joe-armstrong.html |publisher=Coders at work |title=Joe Armstrong |date=2009 |accessdate=23 December 2017}}
It was at Ericsson in 1986, that he worked with Robert Virding and Mike Williams, to invent the Erlang programming language, which was released as open source in 1998.{{cite web |url=http://www.erlang.se/onlinenews/ErlangOTPos.shtml|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19991009002753/http://www.erlang.se/onlinenews/ErlangOTPos.shtml|url-status=dead|archive-date=9 October 1999 |title=Erlang/OTP Released as Open Source, 1998-12-08}}
Personal life
Death
Armstrong died on 20 April 2019 from an infection which was complicated by pulmonary fibrosis.{{cite web | title=Francesco Cesarini on Twitter | website=Twitter | date=20 April 2019 | url=https://twitter.com/FrancescoC/status/1119596234166218754 | access-date=20 April 2019}}{{cite web|last1=Wager|first1=Kristjan|title=RIP Joe Armstong, the author of Erlang|url=https://freethoughtblogs.com/kriswager/2019/04/20/rip-joe-armstrong-the-author-of-erlang/|website=Free Thought Blogs|accessdate=21 April 2019|date=20 April 2019}}{{cite web | author=作者： | title=Erlang之父Joe Armstrong去世 | website=新浪科技_新浪网 | date=21 April 2019 | url=http://tech.sina.com.cn/csj/2019-04-21/doc-ihvhiewr7400471.shtml | language=zh | access-date=21 April 2019}}{{cite web | title=Helen Taylor on Twitter | website=Twitter | date=21 April 2019 | url=https://twitter.com/mrsjoeerl/status/1119941783381774338 | access-date=24 April 2019}}
Publications
- 2007. Programming Erlang: Software for a Concurrent World. Pragmatic Bookshelf {{ISBN|978-1934356005}}.
- 2013. Programming Erlang: Software for a Concurrent World. Second edition. Pragmatic Bookshelf {{ISBN|978-1937785536}}.
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
External links
{{Wikiquote|Joe Armstrong}}
- [https://joearms.github.io/ Erlang and other stuff] - Joe Armstrong's current blog
- [http://armstrongonsoftware.blogspot.com/ Armstrong on Software] - Joe Armstrong's old weblog
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20150911032533/https://www.kth.se/profile/jlarm/ Joseph Leslie Armstrong] - Prof. Armstrong's home page at KTH
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20150905052657/https://www.sics.se/%7ejoe/ Joe Armstrong] home page at the Swedish Institute of Computer Science
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Category:British computer programmers
Category:British computer scientists
Category:Programming language designers
Category:Free software programmers
Category:Erlang (programming language)
Category:KTH Royal Institute of Technology alumni