Ask HN: Why isn't Erlang more popular?

#1

Post by gordonguthrie » Fri, Feb 21, 2014, 4:47 PM UTC

The old Erlang mailing list/twit o'sphere is in a fluster. A manic phase: “WhatsApp - they'll no be asking who uses Erlang now!" preceded by a depressive phase "why isn't Erlang more popular?".

The Erlang community is the last place with insight into why Erlang is not popular.

So lets ask people NOT in the community. Here is a list of hypotheses.

Erlang is not more successful because:

* OTP means Open Telephony Platform

* Erlang/OTP is run by Ericsson

* the syntax is prolog-y & not c-y or ruby-y or python-y, its just too damn erlang-y

* no package manager

* no list of open source packages

* no community site

* the mailing list is the community

* everyone knows each other from Stockholm

* it is too hard to get a first working app

* lists for strings, aargh!

* no for loops, eek!

* variables don't vary, whimper!

* people don't learn OTP first but start with Erlang

* people don't learn Erlang first but start with OTP

* no docs

* too many docs but it is the wrong sort

* not enough teaching materials

* doesn't run on the JVM

* we used to think that it was because there were no books...

* Erlang Solutions isn't a proper internet company

* the language develops too slowly

* emacs is the IDE

Some things people are pinning their hats on:

* more books, yay!

* WhatsApp!

* Elixir is irresistable to Rubyists

* LuvvieScript will prove irresistable to the JSers (disclaimer, I'm lying)

* FP is trés, trés à la mode

* LFE & Joxa will be the little lisps that can...

* something will turn up

* something better turn up

* oh God, get me another drink, even at Stockholm prices, I'll be here when something turns up, but by God, a feed of strong drink is the only way to endure the wait

It would be helpful if you would say if you have:

* never used Erlang nor considered it

* tried it & stopped

* use it regularly

So fire away. Do your worst. Hold nothing back.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't Erlang more popular?

#2

Post by gordonguthrie » Fri, Feb 21, 2014, 4:52 PM UTC

All your thoughts most gratefully received - the internal debate is pointless and fruitless.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't Erlang more popular?

#3

Post by gordonguthrie » Fri, Feb 21, 2014, 4:56 PM UTC

Pierre Fenoll has provided a link to an extensive list of links (and summarised them) about why it has not taken off: https://github.com/fenollp/kju/blob/master/criticisms.md

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't Erlang more popular?

#4

Post by angersock » Fri, Feb 21, 2014, 4:57 PM UTC

So, it's probably not any sort of technological issue--I'm pretty impressed by the tech behind Erlang.

It's the language (somewhat Prolog-ish) that is weird and uncomfortable to people new to it. Elixir helps with this, but still, every time I've tried to pick up Erlang I've rapidly been turned off.

It's the community--rather, the lack of one. Right now the product I'm working on pretty much plays directly to the strongpoints of Erlang: high-availability, high-scalability, soft-realtime performance, and straightforward error handling. Should be an obvious play.

But, I can't find Erlang developers where I live--which is funny, because at least one company with a good exit in town is an Erlang shop.

Maybe we'd be better off trying to open a branch somewhere in Europe to poach ex Ericcson folks. :(

EDIT:

More thoughts.

Prototyping is just a hell of a lot faster in JS/Ruby than in Erlang, though this could be a side-effect of it being a lower-level language more suited to infrastructure stuff. Then again, I've seen at least one 3D modeling package written in it ( Wings3D ).

Maybe that's part of the problem: just what the hell is Erlang good for? I see it used for really hardcore systems stuff, but it also seems to want to serve web pages, and draw 3D objects, and orchestrate builds, and all these other things. It doesn't seem to have a clean focus in the public eye right now.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't Erlang more popular?

#5

Post by mstump » Fri, Feb 21, 2014, 5:02 PM UTC

Something not mentioned in the the list of criticisms linked by gordonguthrie is the lack of a coherent release and distribution framework. There are several half baked implementations none of which have the full support of the community. Sure Erlang allows hot code swap, but it's mostly a manual process requiring a user to interact with the shell.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't Erlang more popular?

#6

Post by eliah-lakhin » Fri, Feb 21, 2014, 5:03 PM UTC

In my opinion, there are three main issues:

1) The Language actually is not general purposes. Or at least it is not promoted this way. If you really need Actor based model and lightweight threads, you can choose Scala/Akka, that is also well suitable for a wide range of different objectives.

2) Standard library(I mean OTP) is simply ugly.

3) Language's syntax is ugly too. Pascal again? No, thanks. :) I know there is Elixir that fixes most of the issues, but too few people know about it outside of the Erlang community. When someone mention Erlang he/she probably thinks about "vanilla" Erlang, which is ugly again.

P.S. I had been using Erlang for a while and then stopped.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't Erlang more popular?

#7

Post by lincolnq » Fri, Feb 21, 2014, 5:03 PM UTC

I've tried using Erlang once or twice. I inherited an open source project written in it, wanted to maintain it a bit but I couldn't make head nor tail of it, and I'm a good programmer (but very busy with other things). There were too many things to learn to get started working with the Erlang ecosystem and I didn't really have the time.

I didn't find any good tools.

The error messages were obtuse.

I didn't understand how simple shit like configuration files worked. I couldn't find any place where the file was 'opened' from code. I chalked it up to the magic of the underlying framework or whatever.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't Erlang more popular?

#8

Post by redspark » Fri, Feb 21, 2014, 5:03 PM UTC

Have never used it nor considered it.

The driving force behind most of the new languages I have adopted; is a friend with experience who plants seeds, then can offer support and answer simple questions as I am learning. I have no friends that I know of who use Erlang.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't Erlang more popular?

#9

Post by seldo » Fri, Feb 21, 2014, 5:05 PM UTC

Since you asked: I have never tried Erlang because I've heard it's like Haskell but harder to learn, and Haskell already breaks my feeble mind, so I have steered clear. This may or may not be an accurate picture, but it was my decision-making process. I have no programming problems that make me think learning a whole new language would be worth it (on top of my existng stack of 10 or so).

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't Erlang more popular?

#10

Post by untothebreach » Fri, Feb 21, 2014, 5:08 PM UTC

seldo wrote: post #9

Since you asked: I have never tried Erlang because I've heard it's like Haskell but harder to learn, and Haskell already breaks my feeble mind, so I have steered clear. This may or may not be an accurate picture, but it was my decision-making process. I have no programming problems that make me think learning a whole new language would be worth it (on top of my existng stack of 10 or so).

I don't understand how Erlang could be "like Haskell" other than the fact that they could both be considered "functional." When I think of Haskell, I think of it's type system, and Erlang's type system is feeble compared to Haskell's.