23 ms·

Electronic Arts is using Erlang

62 points by old_sound 15y ago

pmjordan 15y ago
Wow, a couple of years ago it would have seemed unthinkable that a company like EA would release some of their code as open source. Only very few major game companies released code back then (I can think of only id and Insomniac).
- teamonkey 15y ago
  They opened up EASTL a while back too. http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2007/n2271.html http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2007/n227... https://github.com/paulhodge/EASTL https://github.com/paulhodge/EASTL
  - maximilianburke 15y ago
    That's not all of EASTL, unfortunately. Much of it is still behind closed doors.
- mikebabineau 15y ago
  Some of us our trying to turn that around. My studio, EA2D, has a lot of people from the startup space, so sharing is only natural. We have a small but quickly growing list of open source projects (many more in the pipeline): https://github.com/EA2D https://github.com/EA2D We also have an engineering blog: http://eng.ea2d.com/ http://eng.ea2d.com/ And we're hiring (drop me a line, mikeb@ea2d.com): http://ea2d.com/jobs/ http://ea2d.com/jobs/
- vitovito 15y ago
  It took ages for us to get the approvals for it, but the Star Wars: The Old Republic web team can now push our patches and custom modules for Drupal back to that community, too.
- cgbystrom 15y ago
  Open source at EA: http://gpl.ea.com/ http://gpl.ea.com/
- wwarneck 15y ago
  Jacob Vorreuter has several projects open sourced at github that we used at Rupture (Electronic Arts.) https://github.com/jacobvorreuter https://github.com/jacobvorreuter (emongo, erlmc, dynamic_compile, etc.) Jake was a long time member of the Erlang team, and a lot of side projects were influenced by pain points from our day to day work.
ctide 15y ago
EA is no longer using Erlang, at least none of the code related to this project. I was engineering manager for the rupture team at the tail end of our time at EA. Our entire backend was built using Erlang, and ufortunately the existing MySQL drivers were less than stable, forcing us to build our own.
KevinMS 15y ago
Inspires confidence in a language when drivers for a major database are side projects released on github? This is one of the main reasons I just walked away from erlang, the ratio of buzz vs its supportive environment for the real world is very high. I remember the last time I had to connect to mysql from erlang I had to download a few library files from some company nice enough to release them and dump them into my projects directory.
- arkitaip 15y ago
  This is a very real problem with many "hyped" languages. Sure, they might seem more powerful and elegant, but if you got to spend tons of time re-implementing basic networking/web libraries, then what's the point in using them for web development.
  - frou_dh 15y ago
    Enter something like Clojure whose "host" platform is not just an implementation detail, but a feature.
  - wwarneck 15y ago
    I am a coauthor of the original emysql. I wouldn't recommend using Erlang for your average web application. I would recommend it when the problem you're solving thrives on an idiomatically distributed and fault tolerant platform.
- ZoFreX 15y ago
  > I remember the last time I had to connect to mysql from erlang I had to download a few library files from some company nice enough to release them and dump them into my projects directory Forgive my ignorance in all things erlang but how is this different to connecting to MySQL from Java?
  - lmz 15y ago
    MySQL Connector/J[1] (the JDBC driver) is actually produced by the same company that makes the database? [1]: http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/j/ http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/j/
Aloisius 15y ago
EA bought Shawn Fanning's company Rupture a few years ago and they used Erlang.
- trimbo 15y ago
  Exactly. And there has also been a position open at EA for Erlang to deal with the inherited tech: http://erlang.2086793.n4.nabble.com/Open-Erlang-developer-position-at-EA-td2115133.html http://erlang.2086793.n4.nabble.com/Open-Erlang-developer-po... That link is not working anymore, but that Erlang position was still open when I left EA in December. So it was unfilled for a month shy of 2 years.
  - rubyrescue 15y ago
    There are a number of Erlang devs out there looking for projects - I know because I run erlanginside.com and they often send me their CVs - so not filling a position like that is for some other reason than that there are no talented devs w/experience.
    - wwarneck 15y ago
      I was a hiring manager at Electronic Arts for a team that exclusively used Erlang. It's very hard to find Erlang talent. Many candidates have used Erlang in an exploratory capacity and have no real experience supporting a production Erlang application under load or troubleshooting concurrency problems in a distributed system. That said, it was great to see a lot of passion for Erlang. I enjoy writing it, and hope the language and community continue to evolve.

62 points by old_sound 15y ago

Wow, a couple of years ago it would have seemed unthinkable that a company like EA would release some of their code as open source. Only very few major game companies released code back then (I can think of only id and Insomniac).

teamonkey 15y ago
They opened up EASTL a while back too. http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2007/n2271.html http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2007/n227... https://github.com/paulhodge/EASTL https://github.com/paulhodge/EASTL
- maximilianburke 15y ago
  That's not all of EASTL, unfortunately. Much of it is still behind closed doors.
mikebabineau 15y ago
Some of us our trying to turn that around. My studio, EA2D, has a lot of people from the startup space, so sharing is only natural. We have a small but quickly growing list of open source projects (many more in the pipeline): https://github.com/EA2D https://github.com/EA2D We also have an engineering blog: http://eng.ea2d.com/ http://eng.ea2d.com/ And we're hiring (drop me a line, mikeb@ea2d.com): http://ea2d.com/jobs/ http://ea2d.com/jobs/
vitovito 15y ago
It took ages for us to get the approvals for it, but the Star Wars: The Old Republic web team can now push our patches and custom modules for Drupal back to that community, too.
cgbystrom 15y ago
Open source at EA: http://gpl.ea.com/ http://gpl.ea.com/
wwarneck 15y ago
Jacob Vorreuter has several projects open sourced at github that we used at Rupture (Electronic Arts.) https://github.com/jacobvorreuter https://github.com/jacobvorreuter (emongo, erlmc, dynamic_compile, etc.) Jake was a long time member of the Erlang team, and a lot of side projects were influenced by pain points from our day to day work.

ctide 15y ago

EA is no longer using Erlang, at least none of the code related to this project. I was engineering manager for the rupture team at the tail end of our time at EA. Our entire backend was built using Erlang, and ufortunately the existing MySQL drivers were less than stable, forcing us to build our own.

KevinMS 15y ago

Inspires confidence in a language when drivers for a major database are side projects released on github? This is one of the main reasons I just walked away from erlang, the ratio of buzz vs its supportive environment for the real world is very high. I remember the last time I had to connect to mysql from erlang I had to download a few library files from some company nice enough to release them and dump them into my projects directory.

arkitaip 15y ago
This is a very real problem with many "hyped" languages. Sure, they might seem more powerful and elegant, but if you got to spend tons of time re-implementing basic networking/web libraries, then what's the point in using them for web development.
- frou_dh 15y ago
  Enter something like Clojure whose "host" platform is not just an implementation detail, but a feature.
- wwarneck 15y ago
  I am a coauthor of the original emysql. I wouldn't recommend using Erlang for your average web application. I would recommend it when the problem you're solving thrives on an idiomatically distributed and fault tolerant platform.
ZoFreX 15y ago
> I remember the last time I had to connect to mysql from erlang I had to download a few library files from some company nice enough to release them and dump them into my projects directory Forgive my ignorance in all things erlang but how is this different to connecting to MySQL from Java?
- lmz 15y ago
  MySQL Connector/J[1] (the JDBC driver) is actually produced by the same company that makes the database? [1]: http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/j/ http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/j/

Aloisius 15y ago

EA bought Shawn Fanning's company Rupture a few years ago and they used Erlang.

trimbo 15y ago
Exactly. And there has also been a position open at EA for Erlang to deal with the inherited tech: http://erlang.2086793.n4.nabble.com/Open-Erlang-developer-position-at-EA-td2115133.html http://erlang.2086793.n4.nabble.com/Open-Erlang-developer-po... That link is not working anymore, but that Erlang position was still open when I left EA in December. So it was unfilled for a month shy of 2 years.
- rubyrescue 15y ago
  There are a number of Erlang devs out there looking for projects - I know because I run erlanginside.com and they often send me their CVs - so not filling a position like that is for some other reason than that there are no talented devs w/experience.
  - wwarneck 15y ago
    I was a hiring manager at Electronic Arts for a team that exclusively used Erlang. It's very hard to find Erlang talent. Many candidates have used Erlang in an exploratory capacity and have no real experience supporting a production Erlang application under load or troubleshooting concurrency problems in a distributed system. That said, it was great to see a lot of passion for Erlang. I enjoy writing it, and hope the language and community continue to evolve.