# Robert Virding > one of the original Erlang inventors and developers **Wikidata**: [Q107596747](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q107596747) **Source**: https://4ort.xyz/entity/robert-virding ## Summary Robert Virding is a Swedish computer scientist and one of the original inventors of the Erlang programming language. As a language inventor and programmer, he co-created Erlang at Ericsson in the 1980s, which became a foundational technology for building scalable, fault-tolerant distributed systems. ## Biography - Born: Mumbai, India - Nationality: Sweden - Education: B.Sc. Physics, Uppsala University (1971-1977); Physics studies at La Trobe University (1970) and Stockholm University (1978-1983) - Known for: Co-inventing the Erlang programming language - Employer(s): Ericsson, Erlang Solutions (UK), Defence Materiel Administration - Field(s): Programming language design, software engineering ## Contributions Robert Virding's most significant contribution is co-creating Erlang, a programming language designed for building massively scalable soft real-time systems with requirements on high availability. Developed at Ericsson in the late 1980s alongside Joe Armstrong and Mike Williams, Erlang was specifically designed for telecommunications systems but has since found applications in distributed web services, instant messaging, and cloud computing. Virding has been instrumental in developing Erlang's key features including lightweight processes, actor-based concurrency model, and "let it crash" philosophy for building fault-tolerant systems. Beyond the initial language design, he has contributed to Erlang's virtual machine (BEAM), standard library, and tooling ecosystem. His work on Erlang helped establish many concepts that are now standard in modern distributed systems design. As a language inventor, Virding has also been involved in creating LFE (Lisp Flavoured Erlang), which brings the power of Lisp to the Erlang Virtual Machine, demonstrating his ongoing commitment to programming language innovation and the Erlang ecosystem. ## FAQs ### Q: What role did Robert Virding play in creating Erlang? A: Robert Virding was one of the three original co-creators of Erlang at Ericsson in the 1980s, alongside Joe Armstrong and Mike Williams. He contributed to the language design, implementation, and early development of the Erlang virtual machine. ### Q: Where did Robert Virding study? A: Virding studied physics at multiple institutions: La Trobe University (1970), Uppsala University where he earned his Bachelor of Science in Physics (1971-1977), and Stockholm University (1978-1983). ### Q: What companies has Robert Virding worked for? A: His primary employer was Ericsson where he co-created Erlang. He has also worked for Erlang Solutions in the UK and the Defence Materiel Administration in Sweden. ### Q: Is Robert Virding still active in the Erlang community? A: Yes, Virding maintains an active presence in the Erlang community through his blog (rvirding.blogspot.com), Twitter (@rvirding), and GitHub account, continuing to contribute to Erlang ecosystem development. ## Why They Matter Robert Virding's work on Erlang fundamentally changed how developers approach building reliable distributed systems. At a time when most programming languages struggled with concurrency and fault tolerance, Erlang provided practical solutions that have influenced modern system architecture. The language's lightweight process model and supervision trees have been adopted by platforms like Akka for Scala and the Actor framework for .NET. Erlang's impact extends far beyond telecommunications, powering critical infrastructure at companies like WhatsApp (handling billions of messages daily), Discord, and Goldman Sachs. The "let it crash" philosophy Virding helped develop has become a cornerstone of resilient system design. Without his contributions, the landscape of distributed computing would lack a proven model for building systems that can recover automatically from failures while maintaining high availability. Virding's ongoing advocacy for functional programming and concurrent system design continues to influence new generations of programmers and system architects, making his work relevant even as technology evolves. ## Notable For - Co-inventor of Erlang programming language at Ericsson in the 1980s - Creator of LFE (Lisp Flavoured Erlang), extending Erlang with Lisp syntax - Pioneer in concurrent and fault-tolerant system design - Long-term contributor to open-source through GitHub (@rvirding) - Active educator and speaker in the functional programming community ## Body ### Early Life and Education Robert Virding was born in Mumbai, India, before pursuing higher education in physics across multiple continents. His academic journey began at La Trobe University in 1970, followed by earning his Bachelor of Science in Physics from Uppsala University between 1971-1977. He continued his physics studies at Stockholm University from 1978-1983, demonstrating a strong foundation in scientific methodology that would later inform his systematic approach to programming language design. ### The Erlang Revolution In the late 1980s, Virding joined Ericsson's Computer Science Laboratory where he, along with Joe Armstrong and Mike Williams, faced the challenge of building reliable telecommunications systems. This led to the creation of Erlang, named after the Danish mathematician A.K. Erlang who pioneered queueing theory. The language was designed from the ground up to handle massive concurrency, fault tolerance, and hot code swapping - requirements essential for telephone exchanges that could never go down. ### Technical Innovations Virding's contributions to Erlang included developing the virtual machine architecture that could efficiently handle thousands of lightweight processes. He helped implement the actor model of concurrency, where processes communicate only through message passing, eliminating shared state and race conditions. The supervision tree structure he helped design became a blueprint for building self-healing systems that could isolate and recover from failures automatically. ### Later Career and Continued Impact After Ericsson, Virding joined Erlang Solutions, a company dedicated to supporting and promoting Erlang adoption globally. He created LFE to demonstrate Erlang's versatility as a platform for multiple language paradigms. Through his blog, social media presence, and conference talks, he has mentored countless developers in distributed systems design. His GitHub repositories showcase ongoing experiments in language design and system architecture, maintaining his position as a thought leader in building reliable, scalable software systems. ## References 1. LinkedIn 2. [Source](https://codesync.global/speaker/robert-virding/)