Joe Armstrong Obituary

I don’t remember how I found it, but after flipping through a few pages of Programming Erlang, Software for a Concurrent World, I was hooked. Through this book, and others I learned how to code and got a job at a big tech company at age 37. Joe’s wit and enthusiasm for computer science was contagious. He undoubtedly inspired thousands of people to learn computer science. Through his book and tech talks, he also made functional programming far more accessible than other resources. The little schemer, I’m looking at you :-). Joe will be missed. His family should be immensely proud of the contribution he made to computer science.

I wished I had followed Joe's career closer while he was alive.

I first encountered Joe in this video - a wonderfully funny account of modern computing (from 2014)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKXe3HUG2l4

Such a low res photograph.. I wish they'd found something better to represent Joe.

That's really sad - he will be sorely missed by the Erlang and Elixir community, and probably the entire programming community as a whole.

I did not realise he went to my high school. The school really should have pushed that more – as a student with a clear trajectory into tech they did little to encourage my learning, and I eventually ended up moving so that I could study computing in more depth.

"Joe failed the 11-plus exam and went to a secondary modern school before transferring to Bournemouth grammar school for the sixth form."

I was glad to read this. I love Joe Armstrong's work-- the book, the language are both great. (Especially the book. It just reads well.)

To read that Joe failed, then came back to such success is inspiring. In my mind, Joe Armstrong has had a fantastic career, and leaves with only positive impressions. We should all be so lucky!

Oh. I hadn't seen that he had died.

Rest in peace, Joe. I was just getting to know your work, but thanks for doing it.

It's great that a luminary in the field of CS got his PhD at age 52 (2003).