4 ms·

Great to see more databases written in Erlang.

by codeadict 8y ago

alecco 8y ago
Why would Erlang be good for SQL/relational databases?
- giancarlostoro 8y ago
  The core strengths of Erlang: Erlang has built-in support for concurrency, distribution and fault tolerance. There's many languages I enjoy, Erlang I've never learned (syntax and nobody to pay me to work with it) it fully to it's potential. I would also love to see a full blown SQL relational database in Rust and D, and maybe a NoSQL one as well. See: http://erlang.org/faq/introduction.html http://erlang.org/faq/introduction.html
  - antoaravinth 8y ago
    I don't quite get this, you are saying Erlang is fault tolerant? I'm confused here because fault tolerance is something that the application using a particular language needs to make sure right? Sorry if I mistaken your statement.
    - cmrdporcupine 8y ago
      Erlang comes with a philosophy/style on error handling, and its libraries help a lot as well. Here's a reasonable summary: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3760881/how-is-erlang-fault-tolerant-or-help-in-that-regard https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3760881/how-is-erlang-fa...
    - nickpsecurity 8y ago
      ferd did a great write-up on how Erlang approaches reliability: https://ferd.ca/the-zen-of-erlang.html https://ferd.ca/the-zen-of-erlang.html It's more about assuming things will fail by default with good ways of handling it built-in at the language level. A lot of people also find its inventor's thesis enlightening. Here it is: http://ftp.nsysu.edu.tw/FreeBSD/ports/distfiles/erlang/armstrong_thesis_2003.pdf http://ftp.nsysu.edu.tw/FreeBSD/ports/distfiles/erlang/armst... And for those concerned, there's also at least one project to write the native functions in a safer language to reduce their bugs a bit: https://github.com/hansihe/Rustler https://github.com/hansihe/Rustler
      - bonesss 8y ago
        A lot of these concepts have been carried forward to some popular frameworks and languages. Akka (or Akka.Net & Akkling), is a great example. Railway Oriented Programming (https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/rop/ https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/rop/), has gained some traction in the .net sphere and, along with F#'s Result<'success, 'failure> type, emphasizes structured and exception-less error handling. It may be a poor mans Erlang, but better than nothing ;)
    - tyfon 8y ago
      It's the whole ecosystem with Erlang, OTP (Open Telecom Platform) and how they work with supervisors and monitors etc. Everything is built so that you can operate a telecom switch and never drop that emergency call. Erlang (Ericson language) is not necessary, you can also program for this in Elixir, although personally I prefer Erlang.
    - StreamBright 8y ago
      Erlang and especially OTP "forces" you to follow a standard that usually results in highly reliable service powered by concise easy to read and maintain code.
    - maqbool 8y ago
      Look up the OTP Supervision trees
  - thelastidiot 8y ago
    A long time ago, I took on a huge learning task to port the Erlang VM to another language I needed close binding to. The discovery on how the runtime is built and dependent on other libraries and over the years layered and spaghetti implementation provided me enough insight to decide that Erlang is not in itself the panacea of reliance and fault-tolerance that most people will value this runtime for.
    - PeCaN 8y ago
      Erlang has an amazing track record though. It's battle tested in telecom platforms and internet messaging. Also, I poked around BEAM a fair bit and it seemed just fine to me. It's pretty clean and easy to understand for a fairly complex VM.
- gtycomb 8y ago
  Handling the concurrency and distributed processes are Erlang's forte. Whether ActorDB leverages Erlang's built-in Menesia (an ACID compliant distributed database), I am not sure. Erlang's Prolog-like syntax will help define the relational model.
  - atombender 8y ago
    The database itself is SQLite.
  - thelastidiot 8y ago
    They are Erlang's forte. But the common denominator is the current programmer assigned to the task. A 10x developer will invariably take any language and make it shine. Try that with Erlang on a team of Java developers and you are on for some crazy adventures.
a_c 8y ago
Would love to learn more about Erlang. Does anyone have any recommendation on blogs about Erlang, perhaps something similar to http://antirez.com http://antirez.com ?
- macintux 8y ago
  Glad you asked. I haven’t refreshed this list for a while so I don’t know how valid the links are, but there should be plenty of useful content here: https://gist.github.com/macintux/6349828 https://gist.github.com/macintux/6349828
antoaravinth 8y ago
Slightly off topic but I see Go is better fit too. When i started learning go I read the source of Buntdb https://github.com/tidwall/buntdb https://github.com/tidwall/buntdb It was very well written and easy to pick up as well.

Great to see more databases written in Erlang.

alecco 8y ago

Why would Erlang be good for SQL/relational databases?

giancarlostoro 8y ago
The core strengths of Erlang: Erlang has built-in support for concurrency, distribution and fault tolerance. There's many languages I enjoy, Erlang I've never learned (syntax and nobody to pay me to work with it) it fully to it's potential. I would also love to see a full blown SQL relational database in Rust and D, and maybe a NoSQL one as well. See: http://erlang.org/faq/introduction.html http://erlang.org/faq/introduction.html
- antoaravinth 8y ago
  I don't quite get this, you are saying Erlang is fault tolerant? I'm confused here because fault tolerance is something that the application using a particular language needs to make sure right? Sorry if I mistaken your statement.
  - cmrdporcupine 8y ago
    Erlang comes with a philosophy/style on error handling, and its libraries help a lot as well. Here's a reasonable summary: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3760881/how-is-erlang-fault-tolerant-or-help-in-that-regard https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3760881/how-is-erlang-fa...
  - nickpsecurity 8y ago
    ferd did a great write-up on how Erlang approaches reliability: https://ferd.ca/the-zen-of-erlang.html https://ferd.ca/the-zen-of-erlang.html It's more about assuming things will fail by default with good ways of handling it built-in at the language level. A lot of people also find its inventor's thesis enlightening. Here it is: http://ftp.nsysu.edu.tw/FreeBSD/ports/distfiles/erlang/armstrong_thesis_2003.pdf http://ftp.nsysu.edu.tw/FreeBSD/ports/distfiles/erlang/armst... And for those concerned, there's also at least one project to write the native functions in a safer language to reduce their bugs a bit: https://github.com/hansihe/Rustler https://github.com/hansihe/Rustler
    - bonesss 8y ago
      A lot of these concepts have been carried forward to some popular frameworks and languages. Akka (or Akka.Net & Akkling), is a great example. Railway Oriented Programming (https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/rop/ https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/rop/), has gained some traction in the .net sphere and, along with F#'s Result<'success, 'failure> type, emphasizes structured and exception-less error handling. It may be a poor mans Erlang, but better than nothing ;)
  - tyfon 8y ago
    It's the whole ecosystem with Erlang, OTP (Open Telecom Platform) and how they work with supervisors and monitors etc. Everything is built so that you can operate a telecom switch and never drop that emergency call. Erlang (Ericson language) is not necessary, you can also program for this in Elixir, although personally I prefer Erlang.
  - StreamBright 8y ago
    Erlang and especially OTP "forces" you to follow a standard that usually results in highly reliable service powered by concise easy to read and maintain code.
  - maqbool 8y ago
    Look up the OTP Supervision trees
- thelastidiot 8y ago
  A long time ago, I took on a huge learning task to port the Erlang VM to another language I needed close binding to. The discovery on how the runtime is built and dependent on other libraries and over the years layered and spaghetti implementation provided me enough insight to decide that Erlang is not in itself the panacea of reliance and fault-tolerance that most people will value this runtime for.
  - PeCaN 8y ago
    Erlang has an amazing track record though. It's battle tested in telecom platforms and internet messaging. Also, I poked around BEAM a fair bit and it seemed just fine to me. It's pretty clean and easy to understand for a fairly complex VM.
gtycomb 8y ago
Handling the concurrency and distributed processes are Erlang's forte. Whether ActorDB leverages Erlang's built-in Menesia (an ACID compliant distributed database), I am not sure. Erlang's Prolog-like syntax will help define the relational model.
- atombender 8y ago
  The database itself is SQLite.
- thelastidiot 8y ago
  They are Erlang's forte. But the common denominator is the current programmer assigned to the task. A 10x developer will invariably take any language and make it shine. Try that with Erlang on a team of Java developers and you are on for some crazy adventures.

a_c 8y ago

Would love to learn more about Erlang. Does anyone have any recommendation on blogs about Erlang, perhaps something similar to http://antirez.com http://antirez.com ?

macintux 8y ago
Glad you asked. I haven’t refreshed this list for a while so I don’t know how valid the links are, but there should be plenty of useful content here: https://gist.github.com/macintux/6349828 https://gist.github.com/macintux/6349828

antoaravinth 8y ago

Slightly off topic but I see Go is better fit too. When i started learning go I read the source of Buntdb https://github.com/tidwall/buntdb https://github.com/tidwall/buntdb It was very well written and easy to pick up as well.