In practice, I don't think it is for real Erlang programs. If you need total order, route everything that needs that order through one process, and you have it.

In practice, I don't think it is for real Erlang programs. If you need total order, route everything that needs that order through one process, and you have it. For instance, you can use that to impose total order on messages in a chat room. As long as "one chat room" is small enough for that to be practical even at your largest size, it works. If that doesn't work, don't use Erlang. No sarcasm. The process model is nice but does preclude certain high-performance patterns.