Jim Gray

There was a tribute earlier today for Jim Gray at Berkley.  I want to share some thoughts about Jim.

I have had the privilege to know a lot of great engineers, a number of scarily bright people, a smaller number of truly wise people, and some solidly good people.  And very, very few that are all of these.  Jim is one.

I have met Jim maybe 2-3 dozen times over the last 15 years, and I've exchanged a similar number of emails with him.  But his effect on me, and on my career, was far larger than those numbers would suggest.  He has provided guidance and advice, to which I am seriously indebted.  His only charge was that I pay it forward when I could.  And I try.

If it isn't clear from my other posts, I am basically a plumber.  I build piping, and worry about how to hook stuff together so that it works, and so that it goes reasonably fast (or so I hope).  And, I'd have to say that I wasn't really a professional at this game until I'd put 5 years or so under my belt.  Indirectly, Jim was partially responsible for that transition.

My first exposure to Jim was the same as a lot of people's, I'd imagine.  It was through his writing.  At the time I was a young developer working in the VMS OS group working on its distributed cache management layer (inside RMS).  Steve Beckhardt gave me a copy of a paper and told me to read it -- that it would explain what the purpose of the lock manager was.  The paper was "Notes on Database Operating Systems" by Gray, et al.  It was stunning -- it was clearly an academic paper, but… it was written so that it spoke to plumbers like me.

Eventually I met Jim in person.  Others have written much more eloquently than I could about how Jim can immediately connect with a person.  All I can say is that was my experience.  He was inspirational, helpful, and seemed honestly pleased to meet me.  Over the following years I've met Jim occasionally -- sometimes years would pass between times.  And every time we picked up from where we left off.  I've always been amazed that he could keep track of what I'd been up to.  And every time we talked I came away the better for it.

On the day that Jim was reported missing I came into the office with a question for him.  I was working on the email when I heard the news.  I still haven't asked my question, and I miss his counsel.

Jim.

PS: While writing this I came across Pat's post.  As usual, Pat is very eloquent.  I can only recommend that you read it.