5 ms·

Comparing Erlang and Node.js

15 points by silentbicycle 15y ago

zerosanity 15y ago
Umm... apples and oranges? Erlang is a programming language. Node.js is a javascript framework.
- mononcqc 15y ago
  Erlang is also an entire programming environment, including a framework, database(s), a web server, etc.
  - zerosanity 15y ago
    That would be OTP and not Erlang specifically.
    - mononcqc 15y ago
      Erlang (the language) can not run without OTP as OTP is essential to the runtime environment of Erlang. They are the same entity, which is why the official name is Erlang/OTP. EDIT: an example to be more specific. The basic libraries such as the code server (in charge of loading the Erlang modules in the VM) are packaged as Erlang applications, which is an OTP framework construct. These parts of the OTP framework themselves are included in the Kernel application, and written in normal Erlang.
akadien 15y ago
Why stop there? What about comparing Scala and Apache? Or F# and Sqlite?
- jerf 15y ago
  Because both Erlang and Node are programming environments, and both examples you cite are not the same thing? What makes you think that comparing them is somehow wrong? Strange, two other comments as I write this and both boil down to how it's not a good comparison. What on Earth makes comparing two programming environments unfair? (By the way, I might as well save some time and point out that any cited standard should fail to explain why it's also wrong to compare using Node to compare to PHP or any of the other things Node seeks to supplant for some set of use cases.)
- silentbicycle 15y ago
  Nonblocking server framework vs. nonblocking language, designed for fault-tolerant servers.
knieveltech 15y ago
for the TL;DR crowd: Author expresses ignorance regarding node.js design considerations then provides a long list of erlang features. A meaningful discussion of node.js capabilities appears to be entirely absent. So either the HN title is flamebait or the author's biases glow in the dark. Choose your adventure.
- silentbicycle 15y ago
  The post's author was one of the primary Erlang authors, in case it's not clear. I'd expect his biases to be obvious.
  - knieveltech 15y ago
    That doesn't change the contents of the article. Have a nice day.
mcs 15y ago
This seems a little bigoted. There are people working on fault tolerance, load balancing, and other clustering mechanisms in Node. Granted, they might not rival OTP/Mnesia, but I have great confidence that the Node community will be able to do most of the outlined stuff in his email soon. He did specifically say "was not designed" for these kind of applications, but that doesn't mean the application layer can't take care of it. In fact I would argue that with Node, you have the possibility of having greater control over your clustering and failover logic.
jhuckestein 15y ago
This seems to be comparing apples to oranges. Node.js is a way lower-level tool than erlang and with it come the advantages of programming close to the next lower layer in your stack (in this case syscalls) and less potential for error in node.js itself. I think people are working on things similar to erlang that are built on top of node.
- silentbicycle 15y ago
  Would you mind fleshing out the "and less potential for error in node.js itself" part of your comment? I don't really understand what you mean. I get the impression that error handling in node is handled the same way as managing control flow - you're directly managing the continuation of every potentially blocking / failing event. Erlang's "let it crash" / distributed hierarchy of supervisors error-handling style is IMHO one of its most interesting characteristics; I can't see how it could be grafted on node.
- jerf 15y ago
  "Node.js is a way lower-level tool than erlang" What on Earth are you talking about? Erlang is a language/VM combo (it's hard to separate the two), with nothing else between it and the OS. Node sits on top of a VM not really intended for what it is being used for, so Node has another layer between it and the OS. And the programming style engendered by Node.js is the single most bug-ridden programming style I know, for all its other features. Manually-chopped-up asynchronous callback based programming is a terrible paradigm for code reliability. Erlang is also unparalleled in general for its error handling. I can't even think of another environment that even has a story equivalent to Erlang's cross-cluster supervision trees built in to the core libraries themselves, let alone one with over a decade of refinement.
  - silentbicycle 15y ago
    I think by "lower-level" he means "having to manage resources by hand that could be handled automatically", not "close to the OS".
    - 15y ago
joelangeway 15y ago
The reason they should be compared is because getting comfortable enough in Javascript to stop complaining about asynchronousity causes one to think about that aspect of programming the same way Erlang programmers do. Erlang and Javascript are similar in that they both developed in highly asynchronous environments. And with multiple instances of Node.js, they have similar models of getting things done concurrently; that is, share nothing, pass and handle messages. Both communities seem to prefer dynamic and/or functional solutions to programming problems rather than the sort of solutions you see in statically typed, "object oriented" languages. Though Node.js does make use of Javascript's object model, whereas Erlang uses very light weight processes to separate concerns. Erlang's syntax is "weirder" where weird means doesn't look like C. It's semantics and facilities are much more strictly functional, though with some discipline you could use the same semantics in Javascript, minus nice functional features like pattern matching.
AlexC04 15y ago
While I agree that it does come across as very biased, I think it might be a valid and valuable evaluation of some of node's current areas of weakness. Maybe rather than taking it as flame-bait & starting a holy war over it, we could take a deep breath and pause to remember that not only does e-Mail always come across as more abrasive than it should, SOME programmers have that 'just sorta mildly autistic sometimes(1)' difficulty expressing themselves in ways that take the time to address all those layers of social nicety that people sometimes expect. (more gruff, factual communication, less time for mediating language). It seems to me that this is actually a really great opportunity to put a list of things on the node.js TODO list (some of which, I think is already available through various addins). If Joe Amstrong is one of the creators of Erlang, he's clearly quite brilliant as a programmer and his evaluation of node's should be taken for what it is: a great opportunity to make node better. (1)Not that I'm accusing the OP of that in any way ... it's just that the "tone" isn't really relevant to the rest of the discussion. edit actually, on subsequent readings, it sounds less abraisive as well. Even he says that he doesn't know why node was created, but does know why Erlang was. It kindof reminds me of the quote that was attributed to Einstein: "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." — Albert Einstein

15 points by silentbicycle 15y ago

zerosanity 15y ago

Umm... apples and oranges? Erlang is a programming language. Node.js is a javascript framework.

mononcqc 15y ago
Erlang is also an entire programming environment, including a framework, database(s), a web server, etc.
- zerosanity 15y ago
  That would be OTP and not Erlang specifically.
  - mononcqc 15y ago
    Erlang (the language) can not run without OTP as OTP is essential to the runtime environment of Erlang. They are the same entity, which is why the official name is Erlang/OTP. EDIT: an example to be more specific. The basic libraries such as the code server (in charge of loading the Erlang modules in the VM) are packaged as Erlang applications, which is an OTP framework construct. These parts of the OTP framework themselves are included in the Kernel application, and written in normal Erlang.

akadien 15y ago

Why stop there? What about comparing Scala and Apache? Or F# and Sqlite?

jerf 15y ago
Because both Erlang and Node are programming environments, and both examples you cite are not the same thing? What makes you think that comparing them is somehow wrong? Strange, two other comments as I write this and both boil down to how it's not a good comparison. What on Earth makes comparing two programming environments unfair? (By the way, I might as well save some time and point out that any cited standard should fail to explain why it's also wrong to compare using Node to compare to PHP or any of the other things Node seeks to supplant for some set of use cases.)
silentbicycle 15y ago
Nonblocking server framework vs. nonblocking language, designed for fault-tolerant servers.

knieveltech 15y ago

for the TL;DR crowd: Author expresses ignorance regarding node.js design considerations then provides a long list of erlang features. A meaningful discussion of node.js capabilities appears to be entirely absent. So either the HN title is flamebait or the author's biases glow in the dark. Choose your adventure.

silentbicycle 15y ago
The post's author was one of the primary Erlang authors, in case it's not clear. I'd expect his biases to be obvious.
- knieveltech 15y ago
  That doesn't change the contents of the article. Have a nice day.

mcs 15y ago

This seems a little bigoted. There are people working on fault tolerance, load balancing, and other clustering mechanisms in Node. Granted, they might not rival OTP/Mnesia, but I have great confidence that the Node community will be able to do most of the outlined stuff in his email soon. He did specifically say "was not designed" for these kind of applications, but that doesn't mean the application layer can't take care of it. In fact I would argue that with Node, you have the possibility of having greater control over your clustering and failover logic.

jhuckestein 15y ago

This seems to be comparing apples to oranges. Node.js is a way lower-level tool than erlang and with it come the advantages of programming close to the next lower layer in your stack (in this case syscalls) and less potential for error in node.js itself. I think people are working on things similar to erlang that are built on top of node.

silentbicycle 15y ago
Would you mind fleshing out the "and less potential for error in node.js itself" part of your comment? I don't really understand what you mean. I get the impression that error handling in node is handled the same way as managing control flow - you're directly managing the continuation of every potentially blocking / failing event. Erlang's "let it crash" / distributed hierarchy of supervisors error-handling style is IMHO one of its most interesting characteristics; I can't see how it could be grafted on node.
jerf 15y ago
"Node.js is a way lower-level tool than erlang" What on Earth are you talking about? Erlang is a language/VM combo (it's hard to separate the two), with nothing else between it and the OS. Node sits on top of a VM not really intended for what it is being used for, so Node has another layer between it and the OS. And the programming style engendered by Node.js is the single most bug-ridden programming style I know, for all its other features. Manually-chopped-up asynchronous callback based programming is a terrible paradigm for code reliability. Erlang is also unparalleled in general for its error handling. I can't even think of another environment that even has a story equivalent to Erlang's cross-cluster supervision trees built in to the core libraries themselves, let alone one with over a decade of refinement.
- silentbicycle 15y ago
  I think by "lower-level" he means "having to manage resources by hand that could be handled automatically", not "close to the OS".
  - 15y ago

joelangeway 15y ago

The reason they should be compared is because getting comfortable enough in Javascript to stop complaining about asynchronousity causes one to think about that aspect of programming the same way Erlang programmers do. Erlang and Javascript are similar in that they both developed in highly asynchronous environments. And with multiple instances of Node.js, they have similar models of getting things done concurrently; that is, share nothing, pass and handle messages. Both communities seem to prefer dynamic and/or functional solutions to programming problems rather than the sort of solutions you see in statically typed, "object oriented" languages. Though Node.js does make use of Javascript's object model, whereas Erlang uses very light weight processes to separate concerns. Erlang's syntax is "weirder" where weird means doesn't look like C. It's semantics and facilities are much more strictly functional, though with some discipline you could use the same semantics in Javascript, minus nice functional features like pattern matching.

AlexC04 15y ago

While I agree that it does come across as very biased, I think it might be a valid and valuable evaluation of some of node's current areas of weakness. Maybe rather than taking it as flame-bait & starting a holy war over it, we could take a deep breath and pause to remember that not only does e-Mail always come across as more abrasive than it should, SOME programmers have that 'just sorta mildly autistic sometimes(1)' difficulty expressing themselves in ways that take the time to address all those layers of social nicety that people sometimes expect. (more gruff, factual communication, less time for mediating language). It seems to me that this is actually a really great opportunity to put a list of things on the node.js TODO list (some of which, I think is already available through various addins). If Joe Amstrong is one of the creators of Erlang, he's clearly quite brilliant as a programmer and his evaluation of node's should be taken for what it is: a great opportunity to make node better. (1)Not that I'm accusing the OP of that in any way ... it's just that the "tone" isn't really relevant to the rest of the discussion. edit actually, on subsequent readings, it sounds less abraisive as well. Even he says that he doesn't know why node was created, but does know why Erlang was. It kindof reminds me of the quote that was attributed to Einstein: "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." — Albert Einstein