Joe Armstrong Code Mesh 2016 Interview

Joe Armstrong will be speaking at Code Mesh 2016. Joe Armstrong is one of the designers of Erlang. He will be giving a keybote about controlling the Sonic Pi from Erlang. Plus, there's a special session he mentions at the end of the interview.

His talk is not described yet on the site, but there are a few blog posts about the Sonic Pi on his site:

Follow him on Twitter and visit his homepage.

PurelyFunctional.tv: How did you get into functional programming?

Joe Armstrong: I guess the book by Peter Henderson about Lispkit Lisp did it for me.

I bought in in 1980 and implemented lispkit lisp in Fortran.

PF.tv: Very briefly, what is your talk about?

JA: Dunno - not written yet.

PF.tv: What do you hope people will take away from the talk?

JA: The idea that programming is fun.

PF.tv: Your previous talks have been about software reliability, software complexity, and interesting solutions to that. Are these related to programming the Sonic Pi?

JA: No.

PF.tv: What concepts do you recommend people be familiar with to maximize their experience with the talk?

JA: Download Sonic Pi and play with it. Please do this.

PF.tv: What resources are available for people who want to study up before the talk?

JA: Sonic Pi

PF.tv: Where can people follow you online?

JA: Twitter [@joeerl]Twitter.

PF.tv: Did you ever imagine your starring role in Erlang: The Movie would be so iconic?

PF.tv: No.

PF.tv: Are there any projects you'd like people to be aware of? How can people help out?

JA: Yes ^ 100 - for starters. Every Erlang process should have a URI. All data should be stored in a content addressable store ...

PF.tv: Where do you see the state of functional programming in 10 years?

JA: Making slow and steady inroads.

PF.tv: Anything else?

JA: Yup - I'm interviewing Alan Kay on stage - I'm super excited about this.