3 ms·

Erlang, the next Java

20 points by b-man 16y ago

locopati 16y ago
Also, this is a 3yo talk. At what point do we say, no, no it's not (and I'm a Java guy who really likes Erlang).
- arethuza 16y ago
  I wonder what is the "next Java" then? JavaScript? (NB I used Java a lot from 1995 to 2002 and I'm now a big fan of JavaScript - the appeal of being able to do client side, server side and DB coding in one language).
  - m0th87 16y ago
    Why does everyone insist that there will be a next Java? Maybe the programming language ecosystem is getting less homogenous.
- Semiapies 16y ago
  How long did it take Java to reach its niche?
jcromartie 16y ago
Is the ending of this paragraph a typo or a joke? "One way that Erlang differs from OO languages is its emphasis on failure. Any message can fail. Processes don't raise an exception, they fail. Systems are structured as worker processes at the bottom that are likely to fail, with manager processes above them that restart the failed processes. Because programmers expect processes to fail, they"
- viraptor 16y ago
  It's likely that the idea was either misunderstood or not expressed properly. That paragraph is kind of true... just written in a very weird way that doesn't really show this process in a good light. Yes, Erlang embraces failure and provides ways do deal with it by design. No, it's not a replacement for exceptions. Especially that Erlang does have exceptions to deal with the typical "could fail, so we'll just `try` it" programming.
- bradfordw 16y ago
  No, not a typo or a joke, the mentality of an Erlang programmer is to (and this gets beaten to death in books) "Let it crash." It is ok to let processes fail, you build restart strategies for certain processes so that when they do fail, your supervisors know: how often to try to restart, how many times and of course which module.
  - edu 16y ago
    The point is that the paragrah ends with ",they". Not the idea of fail often fail quickly :)
- wzdd 16y ago
  Based on the fact that two other people here apparently didn't finish reading the paragraph either before commenting: if it was a joke, it was a bad one. :)
  - viraptor 16y ago
    Yeah... probably a very bad one. I finished the paragraph, but thought the typo was so obvious that OP was asking about the contents really, not the silly silly typo.
- daleharvey 16y ago
  hah if it wasnt an intentional joke then its a very good accident. It helped me tremendously to understand error handling in erlang when I realised every line of code was a point of failure Java forces you to handle things like FileNotFound even if you fully expect the file to be there, erlang you would not handle file not found at all, but you would manage all errors at a higher level for the entire unit of code that expected the file to be there.
- jchrisa 16y ago
  If your program gets into a funky state, it's much simpler to trash it and start over, than to try to work backwards to a safe state. Sysadmins know this at the os-process and machine level, Erlang brings it to the language level. Erlang was designed for robustness, concurrency was just a happy side-effect of that focus.
thedeuce 16y ago
have you met most java programmers? Good luck with the Erlang thing bout i seriously doubt it.
davidw 16y ago
I like Erlang, but it is not going to be the next Java in terms of ever ranking at the top of something like LangPop.com.
KirinDave 16y ago
I had the fortune of doing a lot of work with Erlang over the last 3 years, even helping to ship a product that relied on it for some middleware. Erlang is great for some tasks, and if you don't know it (and you're of a programming discipline) you should learn it, if only to get comfortable with Actor concurrency. My newest job requires interoperability with a lot of Java code, so I've been working with Akka, using Scala. While I haven't yet been able to examine if it really can scale the same way that Erlang does, so far its been off to a fairly good start so long as you are disciplined.
discreteevent 16y ago
I like the article's emphasis that it is the lack of shared state that is more important than the fact that the language is functional. Also it is the "mystical view" of objects that contains all the value. Unfortunately its also the baby that some people fail to see when they want to throw out the object bathwater.

20 points by b-man 16y ago

locopati 16y ago

Also, this is a 3yo talk. At what point do we say, no, no it's not (and I'm a Java guy who really likes Erlang).

arethuza 16y ago
I wonder what is the "next Java" then? JavaScript? (NB I used Java a lot from 1995 to 2002 and I'm now a big fan of JavaScript - the appeal of being able to do client side, server side and DB coding in one language).
- m0th87 16y ago
  Why does everyone insist that there will be a next Java? Maybe the programming language ecosystem is getting less homogenous.
Semiapies 16y ago
How long did it take Java to reach its niche?

jcromartie 16y ago

Is the ending of this paragraph a typo or a joke? "One way that Erlang differs from OO languages is its emphasis on failure. Any message can fail. Processes don't raise an exception, they fail. Systems are structured as worker processes at the bottom that are likely to fail, with manager processes above them that restart the failed processes. Because programmers expect processes to fail, they"

viraptor 16y ago
It's likely that the idea was either misunderstood or not expressed properly. That paragraph is kind of true... just written in a very weird way that doesn't really show this process in a good light. Yes, Erlang embraces failure and provides ways do deal with it by design. No, it's not a replacement for exceptions. Especially that Erlang does have exceptions to deal with the typical "could fail, so we'll just `try` it" programming.
bradfordw 16y ago
No, not a typo or a joke, the mentality of an Erlang programmer is to (and this gets beaten to death in books) "Let it crash." It is ok to let processes fail, you build restart strategies for certain processes so that when they do fail, your supervisors know: how often to try to restart, how many times and of course which module.
- edu 16y ago
  The point is that the paragrah ends with ",they". Not the idea of fail often fail quickly :)
wzdd 16y ago
Based on the fact that two other people here apparently didn't finish reading the paragraph either before commenting: if it was a joke, it was a bad one. :)
- viraptor 16y ago
  Yeah... probably a very bad one. I finished the paragraph, but thought the typo was so obvious that OP was asking about the contents really, not the silly silly typo.
daleharvey 16y ago
hah if it wasnt an intentional joke then its a very good accident. It helped me tremendously to understand error handling in erlang when I realised every line of code was a point of failure Java forces you to handle things like FileNotFound even if you fully expect the file to be there, erlang you would not handle file not found at all, but you would manage all errors at a higher level for the entire unit of code that expected the file to be there.
jchrisa 16y ago
If your program gets into a funky state, it's much simpler to trash it and start over, than to try to work backwards to a safe state. Sysadmins know this at the os-process and machine level, Erlang brings it to the language level. Erlang was designed for robustness, concurrency was just a happy side-effect of that focus.

thedeuce 16y ago

have you met most java programmers? Good luck with the Erlang thing bout i seriously doubt it.

davidw 16y ago

I like Erlang, but it is not going to be the next Java in terms of ever ranking at the top of something like LangPop.com.

KirinDave 16y ago

I had the fortune of doing a lot of work with Erlang over the last 3 years, even helping to ship a product that relied on it for some middleware. Erlang is great for some tasks, and if you don't know it (and you're of a programming discipline) you should learn it, if only to get comfortable with Actor concurrency. My newest job requires interoperability with a lot of Java code, so I've been working with Akka, using Scala. While I haven't yet been able to examine if it really can scale the same way that Erlang does, so far its been off to a fairly good start so long as you are disciplined.

discreteevent 16y ago

I like the article's emphasis that it is the lack of shared state that is more important than the fact that the language is functional. Also it is the "mystical view" of objects that contains all the value. Unfortunately its also the baby that some people fail to see when they want to throw out the object bathwater.