Why The Cool Kids Don't Use Erlang • Hacker News Board

Re: Why The Cool Kids Don't Use Erlang

#91

Post by cpncrunch » Sun, Jun 22, 2014, 6:07 PM UTC

micampe wrote: post #88

cpncrunch wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain downvote please.

Negativity. I didn’t downvote but even agreeng with you and being frustrated with the website I was put off by the tone of your comment.

I feel I have a right to a bit of negativity after trying in vain for 10 or 15 minutes to use a website which is completely unusable on an ipad, and not very usable on other devices either (I just have to figure out that you're meant to use cursor keys). I'm just honest - if something is shitty I'll say so. I don't think that was a reason for getting downvoted. I've seen quite a lot of articles posted here with (usually gratuitous) swearwords in the title.

The site also crashes the ipad most of the time, although I think that is just iOS being shitty rather than any fault of the website.

Re: Why The Cool Kids Don't Use Erlang

#92

Post by njharman » Sun, Jun 22, 2014, 6:07 PM UTC

Joeboy wrote: post #6

I would think that the "Hard to find developers" takeaway was a pretty good incentive for developers to start learning erlang.

I consciously and successfully did this with Python back when it was hard to find Pyguys. But, it took a killer app (Django use by media companies) to achieve self-sustaining demand growth. I also really, really love development in Python. Which probably was 80% reason of my success.

tldr; The best success is achieved by doing things you are passionate about. Not chasing jobs/tech/money.

Re: Why The Cool Kids Don't Use Erlang

#93

Post by philsnow » Sun, Jun 22, 2014, 6:09 PM UTC

to3m wrote: post #82

mpyne wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does it mean that GitHub is not really mainstream apart from a narrow group of people? Does git even work well on Windows yet?

Assuming this isn't supposed to be rhetorical - yes, it works pretty well in fact. Windows's bizarrely ropey FS performance means it's a bit slower, but in general the experience is basically the same as using it under OS X. SourceTree/git gui/gitk are work the same.

It may be now (I'll take your word for it), but for the longest time, "windows support" was one of the only selling points anybody could provide for choosing mercurial over git (the other being some people prefer mercurial's branching/tagging to git's).

So, if git didn't work fine on windows for a long time, there would be plenty of time for network effects to entrench github as a non-windows site, and indeed that is the case. Github is where you'll find a lot of javascript, trendy open source projects, and even os x apps, but not so much windows stuff.

Re: Why The Cool Kids Don't Use Erlang

#94

Post by xkarga00 » Sun, Jun 22, 2014, 6:15 PM UTC

mpyne wrote: post #55

CmonDev wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jon Skeet is a Google developer. Well early Git adopters were Linux developers. Does it mean that GitHub is not really mainstream apart from a narrow group of people?

> Does it mean that GitHub is not really mainstream apart from a narrow group of people? Does git even work well on Windows yet?

I work daily on git-bash with no problem at all.

Re: Why The Cool Kids Don't Use Erlang

#95

Post by _broody » Sun, Jun 22, 2014, 6:19 PM UTC

mrottenkolber wrote: post #80

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #19

An interesting thing is Common Lisp's place in the graph. It roughly translates to saying Common Lispers have less woes relatively. The CL nerds were right all along :)

No, it translates into CL is quite widespread but we don't use SO (we have CLHS/good documentation, c.l.lisp, #lisp, loads of mailing lists etc.). Also SO is kind of geared towards entry level programmers, which applies to few CL folks.

Then, too, unlike other languages that frequently attract veteran programmers rather than newbies, CL doesn't appear utterly baffling to an initiate.

Re: Why The Cool Kids Don't Use Erlang

#96

Post by kyberias » Sun, Jun 22, 2014, 6:27 PM UTC

CmonDev wrote: post #37

kyberias wrote: post #31

A semi-interesting observation of the graph on one of the first slides: C# is highest on StackOverflow metric because the site has been historically concentrating more on Microsoft technologies. This also shows on how the different languages are separated by the diagonal line: technologies/languages closer to Microsoft are above the line and more "open" alternatives are under the line.

How can an open free Q&A site be concentrated on something? It simply reflects what people want and need.

That is of course a perfectly valid question and I'm sorry that you got down-voted for asking it. Indeed it was founded by Microsoft technology enthusiasts (Spolsky et.al.) and implemented with Microsoft technology stack. Possibly for these reasons it was (initially) populated heavily with .NET related questions.

Re: Why The Cool Kids Don't Use Erlang

#97

Post by qbrass » Sun, Jun 22, 2014, 6:28 PM UTC

mrottenkolber wrote: post #81

Almaviva wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That or they just would rather suffer than talk to or work with another human being.

Why did you even bother writing that, is it supposed to be funny? Because there is certainly no truth or utility to this ridiculous speculation.

Just like the comment it was replying to.

Re: Why The Cool Kids Don't Use Erlang

#98

Post by kyberias » Sun, Jun 22, 2014, 6:29 PM UTC

mpyne wrote: post #55

CmonDev wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jon Skeet is a Google developer. Well early Git adopters were Linux developers. Does it mean that GitHub is not really mainstream apart from a narrow group of people?

> Does it mean that GitHub is not really mainstream apart from a narrow group of people? Does git even work well on Windows yet?

I works very well. In fact, Microsoft has full embraced it: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh850437.aspx

Re: Why The Cool Kids Don't Use Erlang

#99

Post by hga » Sun, Jun 22, 2014, 6:29 PM UTC

perturbation wrote: post #73

walshemj wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what happened at my first job hired as a research assistant at a world leading research place. My instructions where Keith will give you an hours instruction on how to use the PDP there is a book on fortan in the company library go and learn it. Oh BTW that was leaving high school with 5 O Levels

What is an O Level?

If you're familiar with the Harry Potterverse, NEWTS are modeled on O Levels. Perhaps a bit like US Advanced Placement courses and tests, but much more institutionalized, and I gather they're part of how the U.K. university system can get away with 3 year bachelor's degrees.

I once worked with a Jamaican who'd earned several O Levels (Caribbean counties had their own versions of them modeled on the British system), he was very smart and productive (and like many other good EEs had his own MOSIS chip to flash).

Hearing someone got 5 O Levels immediately causes my talent antennae to twitch ^_^, and I'm not surprised he picked up FORTRAN easily (then again, I found it very easy to learn starting a couple of years earlier than walshemj, and I'll bet with quite a bit less mathematical maturity, just Algebra I and Geometry, with concurrent Algebra II, but all taught by very good to excellent teachers).

Re: Why The Cool Kids Don't Use Erlang

#100

Post by pron » Sun, Jun 22, 2014, 6:53 PM UTC

waffle_ss wrote: post #17

hershel wrote: post #11

Since there are actor libraries like akka targeting the JVM and claiming to offer similar benefits, why should someone prefer erlang?

Because Akka can't magically patch over the JVM's shared memory model: http://doc.akka.io/docs/akka/snapshot/general/jmm.html#jmm-s... And because the JVM does global stop-the-world garbage collection, which makes soft real-time implausible because of the unpredictability of GC affecting your actors. Erlang has per-process heaps. Basically the Erlang VM was created for this use case while the JVM was not, and its not…

> And because the JVM does global stop-the-world garbage collection, which makes soft real-time implausible because of the unpredictability of GC affecting your actors. Erlang has per-process heaps.

Not quite. Every environment needs some shared memory semantics. In Erlang that's done with ETS tables, which don't undergo GC at all. Java's GCs are so good now, that, if shared data structures are used sparingly, would still give you better performance than BEAM. Plus, you have commercial pauseless GCs, as well as hard realtime JVMs.

> Basically the Erlang VM was created for this use case while the JVM was not, and its not something you can just add with a library. edit: Also the lightweightness of Erlang processes compared to Java threads[1] and hot code upgrades.

The JVM is so versatile, though, that all this can actually be added as a library, including true lightweight threads and hot code swapping (see Quasar[1]).

Nevertheless, BEAM was indeed designed with process isolation in mind, and on the JVM, actors might interfere with one another's execution more so than on BEAM, but even on BEAM you get the occasional full VM crashes. If total process isolation is not your main concern, you might find that Java offers more than Erlang, all things considered.

[1]: https://github.com/puniverse/quasar