I wanted to write a short tribute to a man, a legend to those who knew him, who has inspired me on a bit of my life journey.
Peter Amey died on the 4th April after a long and difficult fight with cancer. He was stoic throughout and his Blog, if it’s still there when you read this, gives some amount of testimony to both his physical and mental strength. He was a big thinker and took a detailed interest in his condition and his treatment and this was his way of getting through.
I knew Peter from my days working at Praxis Critical Systems Limited. He was one of the founder members of staff of that little company. It was a huge privilege to work along someone like Peter who put incredible effort into doing what he believed was right.
He was a software engineer in a very literal sense – he engineered software. He developed tools to enable other to write software correctly, first time, that could be proven to be correct by mathematics. He championed the SPARK subset of the Ada language and poured a lot of his time, both professional and personal, into that work.
But he was more than just an engineer; he was a teacher and a philosopher. He worked with more than just software, turning his hand to things mechanical (bikes, cars and miscellany) and musical (Saxophone and, I’m sure, others). And he was more than the sum of all those parts too; an encourager, a man of great principle, passion and wit, a good communicator, and an inspiration to many.
Peter was a thoroughly good bloke. The world will miss him. I will miss him!