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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?

#191

Post by mst »

albemuth wrote: post #173
iqster wrote: post #54

I'm seriously thinking about Erlang now. What raised my eyebrows was "2-3 million concurrent connections on a single FreeBSD box"[this is what WhatsApp achieved]. Async network IO can be done with library support in Python, natively in nodeJS, etc. I wonder if one can push those stacks to this level.

> concurrent connections on a single FreeBSD box Do you have a source for that? I'd love to read more

The first three results on google for me for 'whatsapp freebsd erlang concurrent connection' are -

https://blog.whatsapp.com/index.php/2012/01/1-million-is-so-...

http://blog.whatsapp.com/index.php/2011/09/one-million/‎

http://www.erlang-factory.com/upload/presentations/558/efsf2...

Perhaps those would make a good starting point?

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

#192

Post by digitalzombie »

albemuth wrote: post #173
iqster wrote: post #54

I'm seriously thinking about Erlang now. What raised my eyebrows was "2-3 million concurrent connections on a single FreeBSD box"[this is what WhatsApp achieved]. Async network IO can be done with library support in Python, natively in nodeJS, etc. I wonder if one can push those stacks to this level.

> concurrent connections on a single FreeBSD box Do you have a source for that? I'd love to read more

Whatapp old video talk and presentation on it. You can search it on HN.

Um... it's not easy to get 2-3million they did it but they also profile the crap out of it.

I think they easily got 1 million out of the box though.

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

#193

Post by digitalzombie »

hapless wrote: post #164
rvirding wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and you will end up reimplementing a lot of what is already in Erlang and most likely not as well either. Virding's 1st rule.

This is true, but it misses the point: Erlang is missing enough things that this fellow would rather rewrite OTP in Lua than deal with Erlang. e.g. string handling

Someone implemented a DSL lua on Erlang VM already.

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

#194

Post by bandris »

Rails made Ruby very popular.

Django made Python very popular.

There is no killer webframework for Erlang. However, N2O looks promising. [1]

Also, the learning curve: I took me half a day to be good enough in Python and years to learn the basics in Erlang. It is way more complex and the standard library is plagued with inconsistent/messy interfaces. (They say it is because of legacy code support or other BS.) But under the ugly surface lies the hidden beauty: single assignment is great when reading other people's code. Patching several running servers without stopping with one command is thrilling. Or the built-in nice abstractions for distributed programming like rpc:multicall [2].

[1]: http://synrc.com/framework/web/

[2]: http://erldocs.com/R16B03-1/kernel/rpc.html#multicall/3

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

#195

Post by gordonguthrie »

bfrog wrote: post #162
seancribbs wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#!/usr/bin/env escript main(_) -> io:format("hello, world").

Fair enough, but thats not how the books and documentation present erlang. They present it with the shell and c()

Good point. Never thought of that...

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

#196

Post by gordonguthrie »

digitalzombie wrote: post #193
hapless wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, but it misses the point: Erlang is missing enough things that this fellow would rather rewrite OTP in Lua than deal with Erlang. e.g. string handling

Someone implemented a DSL lua on Erlang VM already.

That'll be Robert Virding (see comment below) lol

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

#197

Post by gordonguthrie »

davidw wrote: post #181
rvirding wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From personal experience implementing the string handling is trivial compared to implementing the system side of Erlang. Get real.

For those following along at home, rvirding is one of the inventors of Erlang. Robert - one of the things that occasionally bothers me about Erlang is that if something like string handling is so trivial, then it should be made available as a more extensive library, rather than an exercise that leaves the reader wishing they were using another language that handles boring stuff like that. It may well not be trivial f…

Well not quite splitting a string, using regexs. Regexs are The language Satan communicates with his minions in...

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

#199

Post by gordonguthrie »

thedufer wrote: post #146

I haven't used or looked at Erlang, but bear with me. * no package manager This is _huge_. For example: I currently work very heavily with node.js. I understand all of the many, many problems with javascript. NPM single-handedly makes up for all of them put together, in my eyes. Which is to say - an amazing package manager can make a poor language. A decent package manager (pip, for example) allows a nice language to…

And old language that looks like a young one... hmm, interesting...

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

#200

Post by gordonguthrie »

501 wrote: post #188

I've posted these before[1]: * No public bug tracker * epmd's security (or lack thereof) * Can't insist that epmd be started separately (`erl -no_epmd` won't start epmd but it also won't start epmd's gen_server) * Can't swap out epmd because while `erl -epmd_module foo` is there, `net_kernel:epmd_module()` is barely used. (Although I don't think its interface is documented anyway) * No built-in way to hook UNIX signa…

Interesting set of comments...
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