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.
Joe Armstrong has died
151–160 of 206 posts
Re: Joe Armstrong has died
#152Joe 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.
Re: Joe Armstrong has died
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
Yeah me too, he was also very active in the Elixir forum. RIP
He was even made admin just over a week ago :-/.
https://elixirforum.com/t/introducing-our-new-moderators-and...
Re: Joe Armstrong has died
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was able to find his reply. The stuff after the `>` is him quoting me. There's another part to this somewhere, but I'll have to keep looking. > Hello! > I am learning Erlang and really liking it. Great > I am finding myself really liking the immutability in regards to being able to reason about my code, but that leaves me with a probably easy question: why does immutability make concurrency easier? Tricky I guess i…
Ah, found the email he responded to a year later. As before, the stuff after the > is him quoting me. ---------------------------------------- > Hello! > > Just under a year ago I send you a message asking you about multi-process computing and the like. You gave me a long, detailed email that not only answered my questions, but also explained in pretty-decent detail. > > I was so impressed by that email that I actual…
Wow, what a sincere message. That right there is a true encounter. His philosophy – much like Erlang's – is unique and refreshing.
Re: Joe Armstrong has died
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah, found the email he responded to a year later. As before, the stuff after the > is him quoting me. ---------------------------------------- > Hello! > > Just under a year ago I send you a message asking you about multi-process computing and the like. You gave me a long, detailed email that not only answered my questions, but also explained in pretty-decent detail. > > I was so impressed by that email that I actual…
Wow, what a sincere message. That right there is a true encounter. His philosophy – much like Erlang's – is unique and refreshing.
Yeah, I'm glad I was able to dig it up. It has an almost-inspirational sentiment to it.
Also, rereading this line genuinely made me laugh:
> 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.
Re: Joe Armstrong has died
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Please don't do this sort of thing. It's crass and it's wrong besides.
It’s not crass to honor Joe’s legacy. It’s on topic and relevant.
Re: Joe Armstrong has died
#157Just 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
Guess I'm alone in not seeing what's so good about this talk. He only presents problems, and in an extremely disorganized way. The closest thing to a solution is "wait, hardware advancement will eventually make your slow code fast."
It's definitely entertaining, but that's about all I can give it.
Re: Joe Armstrong has died
#158Just 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
"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."
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.
Re: Joe Armstrong has died
#159Sad 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.
And with you and others sharing stories of that humor and humility, it will truly be undying.
Re: Joe Armstrong has died
#160I 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.