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Erlang and High-Scale System Software

• axod 18y ago
  what is it with the constant talk of scalability these days? scalability isn't to do with a certain language or platform, it's just due to good efficient design.
  • davidw 18y ago
    Yes, but certain languages and platforms facilitate it more than others do.
  • simonw 18y ago
    Some languages and platforms are designed with scalability in mind. Erlang forces you to write code in terms of message passing between shared-nothing processes, which means that when you need to scale to multiple cores / machines your code is already designed to do so. Google AppEngine severely restricts the kind of operations you can perform (no File I/O, a persistence engine that doesn't even support aggregate queries) which means that you are forced to design your application in a way that scales.
    • axod 18y ago
      I'm of the opinion that languages/platforms shouldn't force programmers to do things. It should be the other way around.
      • brooksbp 18y ago
        Generally, it is. Just wording / thinking of it the wrong way. New languages and tools arise because of need. Therefore, if you feel forced or uncomfortable with your current tools & languages, use different ones. People who feel forced and don't understand the particular programming model of Erlang shouldn't be using it. That simple. Google App Engine... that's another story...