No, it was also about a production setup. The author boasted about how he after 20 or 30 or whatever years of writing software still only used a text editor and

No, it was also about a production setup. The author boasted about how he after 20 or 30 or whatever years of writing software still only used a text editor and make. And a programming language where of 5 lines of the most simple program only one is really concerned with what the program actually does, is not a suitable beginner's language, or at least is not of particular use to demonstrate the most basic concepts of programming. From the article: -module(hello). -compile(export_all). start() -> "hello world". > c(hello). > hello:start(). Compared to PHP's (boo! hiss!): <?php echo "hello world"; (arguably one would have to add the second command for calling it from the command line to this for a fair comparison; on the other hand the command for starting the Erlang shell wasn't included in the 5 lines either: c:\php\php.exe helloworld.php )