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Why the Cool Kids Don't Use Erlang [video]

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Re: Why the Cool Kids Don't Use Erlang [video]

#21

Post by phamilton »

oinksoft wrote: post #7
jallmann wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, while Dialyzer was somewhat useful, it only seemed to catch a subset of possible errors. The set of errors it missed was large enough that I just gave up on Erlang altogether. I never took the time to figure out what Dialyzer could and couldn't catch. This was a few years ago, so I don't really have any particular examples in mind anymore, but IIRC it may have had to do with being mostly unable to validate the s…

> validate the structure of tuples as parameters to > functions. Dialyzer can definitely do that, you just need to specify a type that is a tuple: -type something() :: {Thing :: thingtype(), Thing2 :: thing2type()}. %% ... -spec foo(something()) -> thingtype(). But I agree that Dialyzer can feel incomplete. It's been a little while now but I recall having to use `term()' in specs (basically, untyped) to suppress fals…

Also worth noting that erlc catches typos, again unlike Ruby.

Re: Why the Cool Kids Don't Use Erlang [video]

#22

Post by phamilton »

GeorgeHahn wrote: post #20
ghayes wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like Elixir in general goes a long way to lowering the barrier to using BEAM and OTP.

Do you think folks who are just getting started in the Erlang ecosystem would be better to learn Elixir before Erlang?

I think so. I would be careful not to approach it as another Ruby (there's a lot of overlap in the ecosystem and community) as there are a lot of things that can and should be done differently.

Re: Why the Cool Kids Don't Use Erlang [video]

#24

Post by RogerL »

themartorana wrote: post #9
foobarian wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have similar issues with Ruby. We have a large codebase spanning many years and stuff like typos in variable names make it past tests into production. Compile time checking basically replaces a large chunk of unit tests one would have to write and maintain to cover the same issues.

In an absolutely brilliant video[0] on Microsoft's Channel 9, called "Panel: Systems Programming in 2014 and Beyond" (with Charles Torre, Niko Matsakis, Andrei Alexandrescu, Rob Pike, and Bjarne Stroustrup), Rob Pike makes a comment (I'm paraphrasing) that in making Go, he realized that testing in general and the idea of TDD was due to dynamic languages not having any compile-time checking. The panel seemed to agree.…

Kent Beck invented TDD while programming in Smalltalk, having recalled reading a paper on using TDD with punched tape. I think Rob Pike is confused in his history/assertion.

Re: Why the Cool Kids Don't Use Erlang [video]

#25

Post by Retra »

RogerL wrote: post #24
themartorana wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an absolutely brilliant video[0] on Microsoft's Channel 9, called "Panel: Systems Programming in 2014 and Beyond" (with Charles Torre, Niko Matsakis, Andrei Alexandrescu, Rob Pike, and Bjarne Stroustrup), Rob Pike makes a comment (I'm paraphrasing) that in making Go, he realized that testing in general and the idea of TDD was due to dynamic languages not having any compile-time checking. The panel seemed to agree.…

Kent Beck invented TDD while programming in Smalltalk, having recalled reading a paper on using TDD with punched tape. I think Rob Pike is confused in his history/assertion.

It may be that the popularity of TDD was fueled by this, if not its existence directly.

Re: Why the Cool Kids Don't Use Erlang [video]

#26

Post by mercurial »

jallmann wrote: post #3

I tried to do a startup in Erlang a few years ago. Haven't been able to watch the video because there aren't subtitles or a transcript, but here is why I don't use Erlang anymore: the type system. Erlang/OTP does MANY things correctly, where "correctly" is taken to be "in line with my tastes", and yes this includes the inane issue of syntax. But the type system? Normally that wouldn't bother me, but I'm coming from O…

> My dream language is one with ML semantics running on top of BEAM. That seems like a natural progression for a platform that was designed to be reliable -- while there have been attempts to graft a more versatile type system onto the Erlang base language, the cleanest way forward seems to be a language purpose-built for the task.

On the other hand, OCaml is pretty fast in most cases. BEAM doesn't have the same reputation. I think I'd rather have a better parallel and distributed computing story (complete with monitoring capabilities) for the existing OCaml ecosystem. The soft realtime guarantees that Erlang offers are IMHO too much of a price to pay.

Re: Why the Cool Kids Don't Use Erlang [video]

#27

Post by davidw »

colanderman wrote: post #16
jallmann wrote: post #3

I tried to do a startup in Erlang a few years ago. Haven't been able to watch the video because there aren't subtitles or a transcript, but here is why I don't use Erlang anymore: the type system. Erlang/OTP does MANY things correctly, where "correctly" is taken to be "in line with my tastes", and yes this includes the inane issue of syntax. But the type system? Normally that wouldn't bother me, but I'm coming from O…

Meh. Dialyzer mostly remedies Erlang's dynamic typing for me (also a big OCaml fan). Almost a little freeing. What kills me is that Erlang's design makes it practically impossible to statically check messaging. ! must be /dev/null as far as Dialyzer is concerned. (Not that solving this is an easy problem! But in an environment as dependent on messaging as OTP, it's a painful shortcoming.)

> ! must be /dev/null as far as Dialyzer is concerned.

In day to day use with OTP, you don't use ! much, directly - you're much more likely to do a gen_server:call/cast from within a function that you can easily spec out.

Re: Why the Cool Kids Don't Use Erlang [video]

#28

Post by zem »

mercurial wrote: post #26
jallmann wrote: post #3

I tried to do a startup in Erlang a few years ago. Haven't been able to watch the video because there aren't subtitles or a transcript, but here is why I don't use Erlang anymore: the type system. Erlang/OTP does MANY things correctly, where "correctly" is taken to be "in line with my tastes", and yes this includes the inane issue of syntax. But the type system? Normally that wouldn't bother me, but I'm coming from O…

> My dream language is one with ML semantics running on top of BEAM. That seems like a natural progression for a platform that was designed to be reliable -- while there have been attempts to graft a more versatile type system onto the Erlang base language, the cleanest way forward seems to be a language purpose-built for the task. On the other hand, OCaml is pretty fast in most cases. BEAM doesn't have the same repu…

AliceML is worth a look, though development seems to have died out a few years ago :(

http://www.ps.uni-saarland.de/alice/

Re: Why the Cool Kids Don't Use Erlang [video]

#29

Post by crdoconnor »

foobarian wrote: post #8
jallmann wrote: post #3

I tried to do a startup in Erlang a few years ago. Haven't been able to watch the video because there aren't subtitles or a transcript, but here is why I don't use Erlang anymore: the type system. Erlang/OTP does MANY things correctly, where "correctly" is taken to be "in line with my tastes", and yes this includes the inane issue of syntax. But the type system? Normally that wouldn't bother me, but I'm coming from O…

I have similar issues with Ruby. We have a large codebase spanning many years and stuff like typos in variable names make it past tests into production. Compile time checking basically replaces a large chunk of unit tests one would have to write and maintain to cover the same issues.

>Compile time checking basically replaces a large chunk of unit tests one would have to write and maintain to cover the same issues.

As does static analysis.

You do use a ruby static analysis tool on your project, right?

Re: Why the Cool Kids Don't Use Erlang [video]

#30

Post by crdoconnor »

angersock wrote: post #10
themartorana wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an absolutely brilliant video[0] on Microsoft's Channel 9, called "Panel: Systems Programming in 2014 and Beyond" (with Charles Torre, Niko Matsakis, Andrei Alexandrescu, Rob Pike, and Bjarne Stroustrup), Rob Pike makes a comment (I'm paraphrasing) that in making Go, he realized that testing in general and the idea of TDD was due to dynamic languages not having any compile-time checking. The panel seemed to agree.…

Absolutely brilliant video. One of the best parts was when Pike brings up Erlang, and everyone just kind of mutters and looks down. I also like the part where Pike was like "Yeah, we statically verified the Plan 9 kernel somewhere, but nobody cared. :(" The important thing to note, though, was the thing they all agreed on: type systems don't magically replace tests, and don't magically save you from things when you'r…

Strong type systems (as opposed to weak) come at very little cost, though. There really isn't any reason not to use a language with a strong type system. It will catch a massive multitude of otherwise uncaught bugs and slash unexpected behavior. It doesn't magically replace all tests, but it means you need fewer of them to achieve the same level of quality.

Static typing has a similar effect, but it's weaker (number of bugs caught is lower) and it comes at the expense of verbosity. Your code cannot be as short and sweet anymore, and that makes it more unreadable.

I'll take a strong test suite over a strong type system any day too, but given the choice, there's no way I'll ever do anything more than tiny scripts in a weakly typed language again.

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