Comments on: Erlang, the future of Web Apps? http://dragan.yourtree.org/blog/en/2008/06/08/erlang-the-future-of-web-apps/ Dragan's blog programming, design, fun and other stuff Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:45:22 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.5 by: Alain O'Dea http://dragan.yourtree.org/blog/en/2008/06/08/erlang-the-future-of-web-apps/#comment-18301 Sat, 14 Jun 2008 02:59:40 +0000 http://dragan.yourtree.org/blog/en/2008/06/08/erlang-the-future-of-web-apps/#comment-18301 Erlang is not only great for big distributed systems, but also for small utility programs as well. I wrote a bridge between Subversion and Mercurial using Erlang. The algorithm in my head for doing the revision by revision copying naturally mapped into Erlang code. Pattern-matching, tail-recursion, and ports alone are enough to switch utility and glue code to Erlang. Add to that concise syntax for message-passing and explicit, but easy distribution of work across a node network and you have a winner for all aspects of enterprise software development. Why is my company not using Erlang already? All of our developers (including me) learned to program in Java in the OOP style. Erlang differs substantially from Java in its syntax, but more significantly in the approach to writing programs using it. Erlang's approach of pattern-matching, recursion and message-passing is a huge strength once you have acquired it, but it is a mind-bender for developers accustomed to polymorphism, class hierarchies and for loops. Several of Joe Armstrong's presentations have concise examples highlighting the strengths of Erlang's approach. Timely demonstration of them to OOP developers will increase their familiarity and comfort with the approach and may even pique their interest in learning Erlang themselves. Timely is the key, don't be a squeaky Erlang wheel as it will just irritate your colleagues and build contempt for Erlang. I learned that lesson the hard way. Erlang is not only great for big distributed systems, but also for small utility programs as well. I wrote a bridge between Subversion and Mercurial using Erlang.

The algorithm in my head for doing the revision by revision copying naturally mapped into Erlang code.

Pattern-matching, tail-recursion, and ports alone are enough to switch utility and glue code to Erlang.

Add to that concise syntax for message-passing and explicit, but easy distribution of work across a node network and you have a winner for all aspects of enterprise software development.

Why is my company not using Erlang already? All of our developers (including me) learned to program in Java in the OOP style. Erlang differs substantially from Java in its syntax, but more significantly in the approach to writing programs using it. Erlang's approach of pattern-matching, recursion and message-passing is a huge strength once you have acquired it, but it is a mind-bender for developers accustomed to polymorphism, class hierarchies and for loops. Several of Joe Armstrong's presentations have concise examples highlighting the strengths of Erlang's approach. Timely demonstration of them to OOP developers will increase their familiarity and comfort with the approach and may even pique their interest in learning Erlang themselves. Timely is the key, don't be a squeaky Erlang wheel as it will just irritate your colleagues and build contempt for Erlang. I learned that lesson the hard way.

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