> “How can you sum the numbers from 1 to 10 without using a loop?” Sum = n(n+1)/2
Yeah, I assume it's missing some context that the numeric solution was off the table.
How I fell in love with Erlang
61–70 of 263 posts
Re: How I fell in love with Erlang
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it's cycles, more like newcomers rediscovering the future. I've learned Elixir in 2016 after a lull in my interest in programming languages, and 9 years later it's still my favourite environment by a country mile. It's not the language per se, but the BEAM, the actor model, the immutability — just makes sense, and doing things the C/Rust/Javascript/Python way is like building bridges out of cardboard. F…
What about OCAML, does that fill your needs?
It’s perennially in my list of languages to check out. It felt harder when I looked into it 15 years ago. Now that functional programming is second-nature, it should be much easier.
Thanks for the reminder.
Re: How I fell in love with Erlang
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's because we are wired that attention is it's own currency nowadays. And it's also true. Even if there's no paid product, you get strength in numbers. If you depend on an open source library, it's usually better for you if others depend on it too.
Certainly an element of that but there are also cases where the superior product "lost" to the inferior product because the inferior one was better marketed. So doing some level of promotion becomes necessary if you want users even when you have the better product - the superior product speaks for itself doesn't often apply any more.
> doesn't often apply any more
It actually never did, for almost any product.
And programming languages are in the lower end of quality actually impacting decisions. People are incredibly resistant to changes there, and just can't evaluate competing options at the same time.
Re: How I fell in love with Erlang
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's funny that you mention this, and it made me take some time to appreciate I've been working with Elixir full-time for almost 10 years now, and the entire experience has been so... stable. There's been little drama, the language is relatively stable, the community has always been there when you need them but aren't too pushy and flashy. It all feels mature and – in the best possible way – boring, and that is aweso…
I've moved from Linux to OpenBSD for this reason. It's all so boring it's wonderful.
I like OpenBSD, but I like Docker and Steam too much to daily-drive it.
Re: How I fell in love with Erlang
#65It's funny how HN goes through these Erlang cycles. It's a long standing tradition, starting off with 'Erlang Day': https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2009-03-11 Erlang gets a lot of stuff right for scalable web based stuff, and even though there are many of its influences that have by now made it into other languages and eco systems it is still amazing to me that such a well thought out system is run with such i…
I don't think it's cycles, more like newcomers rediscovering the future. I've learned Elixir in 2016 after a lull in my interest in programming languages, and 9 years later it's still my favourite environment by a country mile. It's not the language per se, but the BEAM, the actor model, the immutability — just makes sense, and doing things the C/Rust/Javascript/Python way is like building bridges out of cardboard. F…
You may be one of today's lucky 10K.
https://github.com/cloudozer/ling
Erlang on Xen.
But also one of today's unlucky 10K as it hasn't been updated for 10 years.
Re: How I fell in love with Erlang
#66There is also Erlang the Movie 2 trying to sell Erlang (called Outlaw Techno Psyhchobitch in the video) with rock and hot chick: https://youtu.be/rRbY3TMUcgQ?t=262
And they were right, rebranding was all Erlang needed 13 years ago
Re: How I fell in love with Erlang
#67Fantastic article, my thanks to the author.
I must go dig up the Erlang book from my library. As I recall, it was a great read.
Re: How I fell in love with Erlang
#68> X equals X plus one? That’s not math. That’s a lie. That's really interesting... My wife, who has no real mathematical background had the EXACT same reaction when I was trying to teach her some simple programming. I tried to explain that equals in that context was more of a storage operator than a statement that said line is true. She found it very frustrating and we gave up on the endeavor shortly thereafter. I've…
Yes, people with mathematical background tends to fare better with declarative languages.
Re: How I fell in love with Erlang
#69For what it's worth, I'm stuck on the very first x = x + 1 thing.
Not sure if you want to call it a screwup or bad grammar or whatnot, but it is perhaps the huge mistake that the "equals" sign was used for something that feels like, but emphatically DOES NOT mean, "is equal to."
It's "put this into that". It's an action verb. Should have perhaps insisted on x x
Re: How I fell in love with Erlang
#70For what it's worth, I'm stuck on the very first x = x + 1 thing. Not sure if you want to call it a screwup or bad grammar or whatnot, but it is perhaps the huge mistake that the "equals" sign was used for something that feels like, but emphatically DOES NOT mean, "is equal to." It's "put this into that". It's an action verb. Should have perhaps insisted on x x
I prefer pascal's way: x := x + 1.