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> Erlang is great but its ecosystem is tiny compared to Node's, and as a programming language it's at least as quirky as JavaScript. I disagree with this; whil

> Erlang is great but its ecosystem is tiny compared to Node's, and as a programming language it's at least as quirky as JavaScript. I disagree with this; while the syntax is unusual for many, its semantics are extremely simple and clear. I don't think it has anything quite like: * JavaScript having `null` and `undefined`. * JavaScript lacking have proper integers. * JavaScript strings being UTF-16, so things like "".length don't work. * Scoping of 'this'. * The unmanageable automatic typecast rules * Semicolon insertion. * JavaScript `with (x) {` (maybe a cheap shot since it's so uncommon, but we are talking about language design). Main quirks I can think of for Erlang are when people trip up over "strings", <<"binaries">>, and iolists. But I'd love to hear where others run into proper semantic quirks.

foldr 9y ago
Does it have a non-hacky way of handling record types yet?
- srpablo 9y ago
  It has maps now! This chapter speaks of them being fully supported in future versions, which have since arrived. http://learnyousomeerlang.com/maps http://learnyousomeerlang.com/maps And even records are hardly a quirk like the ones I listed for JavaScript: as long as you remember that they're just syntax around tuples, you're hardly ever surprised by what they do. You'll never get a runtime behavior you didn't expect.
  - foldr 9y ago
    That is definitely an improvement, although the document you linked to suggests that the old-style records would still be used for some purposes. If the language already has tuples there's really no reason why it shouldn't just have tuples with a fixed set of named fields. The quirks of JavaScript that you mention never bother me at all in practice (and yes, bringing up 'with' is a very cheap shot, and Erlang's string handling is pretty wacky too), but I remember that not having real record types was a serious pain point.

foldr 9y ago

Does it have a non-hacky way of handling record types yet?

srpablo 9y ago
It has maps now! This chapter speaks of them being fully supported in future versions, which have since arrived. http://learnyousomeerlang.com/maps http://learnyousomeerlang.com/maps And even records are hardly a quirk like the ones I listed for JavaScript: as long as you remember that they're just syntax around tuples, you're hardly ever surprised by what they do. You'll never get a runtime behavior you didn't expect.
- foldr 9y ago
  That is definitely an improvement, although the document you linked to suggests that the old-style records would still be used for some purposes. If the language already has tuples there's really no reason why it shouldn't just have tuples with a fixed set of named fields. The quirks of JavaScript that you mention never bother me at all in practice (and yes, bringing up 'with' is a very cheap shot, and Erlang's string handling is pretty wacky too), but I remember that not having real record types was a serious pain point.