Joseph Leslie Armstrong (27 December 1950 – 20 April 2019) was a

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus ( ...

working in the area of

fault-tolerant Fault tolerance is the property that enables a system to continue operating properly in the event of the failure of one or more faults within some of its components. If its operating quality decreases at all, the decrease is proportional to the ...

distributed systems A distributed system is a system whose components are located on different networked computers, which communicate and coordinate their actions by passing messages to one another from any system. Distributed computing is a field of computer sci ...

. He is best known as one of the co-designers of the Erlang programming language.

Early life and education

Armstrong was born in

Bournemouth Bournemouth () is a coastal resort town in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council area of Dorset, England. At the 2011 census, the town had a population of 183,491, making it the largest town in Dorset. It is situated on the English ...

, England in 1950. At 17, Armstrong began programming in Fortran on his local council's

mainframe A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...

. Armstrong graduated with a

B.Sc. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

Physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which rel ...

from

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = � ...

in 1972. He received a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...

from the

Royal Institute of Technology The KTH Royal Institute of Technology ( sv, Kungliga Tekniska högskolan, lit=Royal Institute of Technology), abbreviated KTH, is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH conducts research and education in engineering and technol ...

(KTH) in

Stockholm, Sweden Stockholm () is the capital and most populous city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately 1 million people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 millio ...

in 2003. His dissertation was titled ''Making reliable distributed systems in the presence of software errors''. He was a professor at KTH from 2014 until his death.

Career

After briefly working for

Donald Michie Donald Michie (; 11 November 1923 – 7 July 2007) was a British researcher in artificial intelligence. During World War II, Michie worked for the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, contributing to the effort to solve " Tunny ...

at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

, Armstrong moved to Sweden in 1974 and joined the Ericsson Computer Science Lab at

Kista Kista () is a district in the borough of Rinkeby-Kista, Stockholm, Sweden. It has a strategic position located in between Sweden's main airport, the Stockholm-Arlanda International Airport and central Stockholm, and alongside the main natio ...

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 Donald Michie (; 11 November 1923 – 7 July 2007) was a British researcher in artificial intelligence. During World War II, Michie worked for the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, contributing to the effort to solve " Tunny ...
—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 EISCAT (European Incoherent Scatter Scientific Association) operates three incoherent scatter radar systems in Northern Scandinavia and Svalbard. The facilities are used to study the interaction between the Sun and the Earth as revealed by distu ...
scientific association and later the
Swedish Space Corporation The Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) provides space subsystems, space and satellite operations, rocket and balloon systems including experiment equipment, launch services, aerospace engineering services as well as airborne maritime surveillance s ...
, before finally joining the Ericsson Computer Science Lab, where he invented Erlang.

It was at

Ericsson (lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Sweden, Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in ...

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.

Personal life

Armstrong married Helen Taylor in 1977. They had two children, Thomas and Claire.

Death

Armstrong died on 20 April 2019 from an infection which was complicated by

pulmonary fibrosis Pulmonary fibrosis is a condition in which the lungs become scarred over time. Symptoms include shortness of breath, a dry cough, feeling tired, weight loss, and nail clubbing. Complications may include pulmonary hypertension, respiratory fail ...

Publications

* 2007. ''Programming Erlang: Software for a Concurrent World''. Pragmatic Bookshelf . * 2013. ''Programming Erlang: Software for a Concurrent World. Second edition''. Pragmatic Bookshelf .

References

Swedish Institute of Computer Science RISE SICS (previously Swedish Institute of Computer Science) is a leading research institute for applied information and communication technology in Sweden, founded in 1985. It explores the digitalization of products, services and businesses. In ...