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Ask HN: Why isn't Erlang more popular?

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

#231

Post by voidlogic »

pjmlp wrote: post #217
kinofcain wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

java.util.concurrent doesn't have a convenient mechanism for "selecting" across available channels/queues without blocking. This is a key feature of erlang and go. There are ways to simulate it, but it's not the same thing. (I'd love to be wrong about this).

Yes, you need to peek() the queues, so it is not really being blocked on select like Go. But then, one can use something like Akka, which I forgot to mention, and still be on the JVM.

>so it is not really being blocked on select like Go.

Select in Go only blocks if you don't feel out the "default:" case...

  select {
     case: foo :=

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

#232

Post by voidlogic »

waffle_ss wrote: post #70
Nogwater wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not knowing enough about Erlang/OTP or Go: Would it be possible for more of OTP to be replicated in a Go 2.0? What's missing? What would it take? What can never be replicated?

Besides the issues that jerf mentioned, Erlang also has per-process garbage collection built right into the VM. Last time I checked Go's garbage collection was still stop-the-world, mark-and-sweep, making it less suitable for soft real-time systems than Erlang.

The Go situation is changing:

runtime: concurrent GC sweep Moves sweep phase out of stoptheworld by adding background sweeper goroutine and lazy on-demand sweeping.

https://codereview.appspot.com/46430043/

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

#233

Post by davidw »

rvirding wrote: post #206
davidw wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And one reason it works is because it has built-in those features for building fault-tolerant systems which, for example, Go lacks. Very few people really need that though, so from a marketing point of view, to sell that as the primary feature is to consign Erlang to a fairly small niche.

Actually if you really start asking a lot of people do actually want this but it is often something they don't explicitly mention. It tends to be one of those "of course it must ..." things.

I think it's a question of what kind of people you come into contact with. I'm from the 'web' world, and for many web sites, the whole fault tolerance thing is not that important in the grand scheme of things. Look at Twitter, for instance. Despite starting with Rails, which is really not the right technology for the kind of system they have, they managed to kind of stumble along until they got more appropriate systems in place. And most web sites have nowhere near that need to scale or be always available.

I think that in an area like telecoms, it's of course more likely that people care about that a lot more.

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

#234

Post by doktrin »

coldtea wrote: post #226
doktrin wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're looking at something that is really well-known. What does the website of Google convey? The Google comparison is comical. You are wildly over-estimating how well known Erlang is, even in the dev community. > Do you really decide whether you'd learn a language by looking at its website? Most devs learn a new language when it helps them solve a problem. Anyone who needs to solve the problems that Erlang addres…

> You are wildly over-estimating how well known Erlang is, even in the dev community Well, it's pretty well known in the competent dev community. Some guy doing CRUD apps for some enterprise might not know it, true.

lol. This silly elitism needs to die.

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

#235

Post by twunde »

I've actually considered learning Erlang, but never gone through with it as other languages seem more useful and/or enjoyable.

For me to seriously consider learning a new language/framework it should have:

Good documentation. Python is the gold standard. Good SEO for that documentation. Multiple good FREE learning resources, preferably with something useful being built. Good tooling (package manager, testing, etc)

Most importantly there should be a reason to learn it. For Node, I get easy asynchronous code. Clojure I get an enterprise-acceptable lisp. Go I get C-like performance + concurrency in an enjoyable language with modern tooling. Hell, learning Java allowed me to program for the Android.

Erlang? Well it's got some great concurrency and it's highly available. But I don't know anyone using it (and when I hear about it, it's usually because someone has stopped using it), it has a high learning curve and most of what makes it interesting can be found elsewhere.

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

#236

Post by coldtea »

doktrin wrote: post #234
coldtea wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are wildly over-estimating how well known Erlang is, even in the dev community Well, it's pretty well known in the competent dev community. Some guy doing CRUD apps for some enterprise might not know it, true.

lol. This silly elitism needs to die.

Why, because all programming endeavours are equally hard or important, and all programmers have equal skills?

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

#237

Post by doktrin »

coldtea wrote: post #236
doktrin wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol. This silly elitism needs to die.

Why, because all programming endeavours are equally hard or important, and all programmers have equal skills?

In this make believe scenario, the world is divided neatly into opposing camps of "competent devs" and "enterprise CRUD devs". It's dismissive, cheap analysis at its best. It's a straw man whose only real purpose is to embolden us with a smug sense of superiority.

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

#238

Post by kwhitefoot »

benmmurphy wrote: post #71

i find messaging between processes and handle exits can be a bit awkward as well. for example if you send a message to a process there is no way to know whether it actually received the message or not. if you wait for a reply from the process then you can tell if the process received your message AND processed it but sometimes you only want to do the first for performance as well as semantic reasons. for example you…

Why do you want to know if it received the message? If you need that why not call a function? I used to do a lot of work with soft real time message passing using MPL (Motorola Programming Language) and SDL where the whole program was simply a state machine implemented by sending messages. I don't think I ever felt the need to have one process send confirmation back to say that the message had been received.

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

#239

Post by claystu »

Luc wrote: post #139
spoiler wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you missed the point. When I first heard about Go, I went to the official website and I was immediately presented with a few code examples. The go tour was fascinatingly good introductory material. Furthermore, the documentation and language specification are very concise, clear and full of examples. What am I trying to say? Put effort into presenting your language and I will put effort into going through t…

No, I get the point, but I don't agree with it, at least not to that extent. > Put effort into presenting your language and I will put effort into going through the material. Give me two shit and that's how much interest you will get from me. See, I really don't think it's worth courting people who have that attitude. If your motivation is _that_ low, it's probably not for you anyway. At this point, even people who d…

> See, I really don't think it's worth courting people who have that attitude.

What attitude? Someone goes to a website out of curiosity, but it isn't very helpful so they leave. (Who hasn't done this?)

Erlang might be EXACTLY the thing they need, but on the subject of why Erlang isn't more popular--subpar marketing is more than relevant.

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