Remembering Jim
Both melancholy and reverential, the Jim Gray Tribute
at the University of California at Berkeley honored one of
computer science’s leading pioneers and visionaries.
ON MAy 31, almost 750 colleagues, friends, and family members gathered at the
University of California at
Berkeley campus for a daylong tribute to Jim Gray, who disappeared at sea while sailing his 40-foot
sailboat off the coast of San Francisco
on Jan. 28, 2007.
For nearly four decades, Gray worked for some of the computer industry’s
largest companies including Digital Equipment, IBM, Microsoft, and
Tandem. His intellect and technical
achievements in database and transaction processing are legendary. He won
the ACM A.M. Turing Award in 1998
for his description of the basic requirements for transactions as well as his
research in locking, concurrency, and
fault tolerance. He initiated the use of
performance benchmarks for a wide
variety of transaction environments.
And in recent years he stimulated the
creation of massive distributed scientific databases that are reshaping the
fields of astronomy and oceanography, and are laying the groundwork for
eScience, a new method of research.
Even more impressive than his professional achievements is the fact that
hundreds of Gray’s colleagues considered themselves to his best friend, so
genuine and deep was his interest in
each of them. Accordingly, the tribute’s
audience included graduate students
and new employees, astronomers and
geologists, department chairs and
CEOs, and several generations of computer scientists and database experts
from academia and industry. A handful
of attendees traveled from as far away
as Europe and Asia solely for the event.
Gray entered the University of California at Berkeley in 1961, initially majoring in physics. He briefly considered
philosophy, then switched to mathematics before settling on the emerging
field of computer science. His thesis
advisor, Michael Harrison, urged his
students to write down all that they
learned. Gray took this advice to heart,
developing the habit of writing up—
and distributing—reports of meetings,
trips, and conferences. He soon established two rules for authoring technical papers: “He who types the paper
is first author” and “It’s easier to add
a co-author than deal with someone’s
hurt feelings.” At times, colleagues
were unaware of their participation. “I
co-authored [one paper] while I wasn’t
looking,” quipped Microsoft’s Pat Hel-land, who joined Tandem in the early
1980s to work with Gray.
“Jim was not dangerous to his colleagues, as some scientists can be,”
recalled Mike Blasgen, who was one of
Gray’s managers at IBM in the 1970s.
“He would not take credit for your
ideas. Also, he always had an interesting or provocative insight, so people
wanted to be his friend.”
In time, Gray developed a large professional network with which he shared
information, both inside and outside
of the company he was working for. At
Tandem, for example, “he was a great
pollinator,” productively sharing ideas
between departments, said Wendy Bartlett, now with Hewlett-Packard.
When visiting companies and universities or attending conferences, Gray
often sought out students, interns, and
young professionals, listening intently
to their research and subtly offering
suggestions. “He would not say ‘This
is what you must do,’ ” said Alex Szalay
of Johns Hopkins University, who had
worked with Gray on the Sloan Digital
Sky Survey. “He would gently light the
way, so that people would find the path
themselves.”
Although Gray’s closest colleagues
knew firsthand the many hours he typically spent working, many attendees at
the tribute were incredulous that any
one person could accomplish all that
Gray had.
His wife, Donna Lee Carnes, offered
some clues. “I don’t think I ever saw
Jim procrastinate,” she said. “Writing
also came very easily to him. You can
get a lot done when you’re focused and
fast. He could also read and absorb
knowledge very quickly. ”
Carnes said her husband had an astounding amount of energy despite the
fact that he often slept only five hours
a night during the week. “If he was
looking for a bug in his program or a
product was nearly ready to ship, nothing came between Jim and his work,”
Carnes added. “He wouldn’t even stop
to eat. Just coffee, sometimes three
pots.”
However, after the bug was found
and fixed or the product shipped, Gray
would enjoy good food, and often sailing, with his wife and friends. When
John Nauman, who hired Gray at Tandem, asked the tribute audience how
many had gone sailing with Gray, about
100 hands shot into the air.
In announcing his departure from
IBM Research in 1980, Gray wrote that
he aspired to be “a scholar of computer
science,” noting that all fields of scholarship emphasized research, teaching,
and service. The Jim Gray Tribute demonstrated that he had clearly achieved
that—and much, much more.
Michael Ross writes about science and technology from
San Jose, CA.
PHO TOGRAPH B Y RICHARD MORGENS TEIN