I'm the author of Learn You Some Erlang, and as pointed out by rvirding in the comments, I've also written a blog entry about the syntax (http://ferd.ca/on-erla

I'm the author of Learn You Some Erlang, and as pointed out by rvirding in the comments, I've also written a blog entry about the syntax (http://ferd.ca/on-erlang-s-syntax.html http://ferd.ca/on-erlang-s-syntax.html). I'll be adding this entry in the book at some point in the future. Hopefully the entry helps understanding the logic/meaning behind the punctuation in Erlang's syntax. Also, as pointed out in another blog post (http://ferd.ca/an-open-letter-to-the-erlang-beginner-or-onlooker.html http://ferd.ca/an-open-letter-to-the-erlang-beginner-or-onlo...), I would just add that a different syntax helps getting in a different mindset, which is particularly useful when learning new paradigms. It might seem like something really annoying, but you'd be surprised how often we see people trying to shoehorn whatever concept they know from imperative or OO programming (or even some functional idioms) into Erlang. That just doesn't work most of the time. You have to learn the basics and forcing you out of your comfort zone by way of syntax might help with this. It's not all bad!