Joe Armstrong has passed away

3even · April 20, 2019, 6:53pm

RIP Joe.

aenglisc · April 20, 2019, 8:01pm

Goodbye, Joe.

chu · April 20, 2019, 8:42pm

R.I.P Joe. A life well lived, you gave us all something that brings us together and gives us a chance to make better lives for ourselves and those we love. Sleep well champ!

mythicalprogrammer · April 20, 2019, 9:03pm

I’m so sad and shock. Just woke up, opened hackernews, and see this.

It’s a shock because he just became mod here and I just assume everything is well.

His blog posts have helped me a lot in my understanding of Erlang’s concurrency. His video conferences were enlightening.

I hope his friends and family is coping well.

maqbool · April 20, 2019, 9:39pm

I still can’t believe he is no more the man who have inspired many developer. He was one of the most humble person in the CS industry.

Cruz · April 20, 2019, 9:42pm

Very sad news indeed. R.I.P. Joe, and thanks for Erlang

LTheGreats · April 20, 2019, 10:14pm

This is very sad to hear.

gon782 · April 20, 2019, 10:17pm

Joe Armstrong changed how I view programming and especially how I view concurrency. Not only that; I owe my career to him and Erlang.

It’s not often these kinds of news affects me, but Joe was so open to everyone and so curious about everything even though he’d been in the game for so long and could’ve comfortably leaned back on his accomplishments. He truly felt like one of us.

This is an incredible loss to the community, to computer science, to discourse and to humanity. He was just getting started.

AstonJ · April 20, 2019, 11:07pm

I still can’t believe this has happened, I feel so emotionally and physically drained right now (been listening to sad songs and crying for the last few hours ).

If anyone needs someone to talk to, you are always welcome to PM me.

I hope one day I can create something in Elixir/Erlang that would make Joe proud, and I hope as a community we continue to do him proud and honour his spirit in everything we do.

marciol · April 20, 2019, 11:32pm

Before this Forum, one of my favourite places always was the Erlang questions mailing list, and Joe was always there, talking about fun and exploratory things, a relentless seeker of ways to improve our field. He usually said that we still live in computer pre history and he was concerned with the perennity of the knowledge, always questioning about the software that should keep working after a long time. This week he was talking about old stuff that he was revisiting to see if it continues to function.

I thing that maybe the Erlang Ecosystem Foundation should ensure that his writings will be remembered, I thing that he would be happy with it.

So much to say, I will miss Joe, Thank You.

radar · April 21, 2019, 1:01am

We’ll miss you, Joe.

bklau · April 21, 2019, 3:55am

Another pioneer and towering giant whose legacy would be remembered for decades to come. Sad.

greyhwndz · April 21, 2019, 4:56am

Felt so bad upon knowing this. Am at a loss for words. RIP Joe! Condolence to his family… :sad

jeramyRR · April 21, 2019, 5:09am

Is anyone aware of the cause yet?

jchristopherinc · April 21, 2019, 9:39am

I had Joe as a lecturer in parallel Erlang back in January and February this year. Amazing person, seemed like he knew everything about computers. He told us that he was sick with lung fibrosis. His lungs capacity was at 50% something and kept shrinking every day. The last few lectures he was supposed to give got cancelled due to sickness. Got the news that he had passed today. A very sad day I must say.

Source:
https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/bfchzb/joe_armstrong_the_creator_of_erlang_has_passed/eldqd5n?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x

Exadra37 · April 21, 2019, 9:52am

I found this story about how Joe once replied in a very detailed way to an email from a random guy in the internet, Thomas Gebert.

I had expected him to simply send me an Amazon link for a book, or to even simply ignore my email, but instead he went into good detail about these things, and it stuck. Suddenly, a lot of the concurrency problems that I had neglected made sense, and I knew the path forward to learning this: Erlang.

One part that shows the Joe humor:

I was sat listening to Brian Acton who founded WhatsApp and made 3.5B$ and thought “I invented this crap” — which is a great feeling — and they gave me a tee-shirt.

DevotionGeo · April 21, 2019, 10:34am

I can’t believe Joe is no more. He truly will be missed. Such a nice personality he was.
My condolences are with his family.
Rest in Peace Joe Armstrong, and thank you for the good work you did!

pillaiindu · April 21, 2019, 11:29am

Very sad news.
Joe Armstrong was on my ‘list of people I want to meet at least once in my lifetime’.

ferd · April 21, 2019, 12:12pm

Wrote a small eulogy here.

AstonJ · April 21, 2019, 1:01pm

That was a lovely post Fred. How you ended it made me cry

I don’t know what it will be like to have this community without him around. He was humble. He was approachable. He was excited. He was creative.

I hope we’ll strive to honour him in precisely that way. He will most certainly not be forgotten and I feel privileged to (and glad that so many others here) have ‘met’ and spoken to him - even if it was just over a digital medium. We will also honour his memory by keeping him listed on our Admin team.