4 ms·

I don’t think Firefly gets rid of the OTP.

jononomo 4y ago
OTP is a programming library/paradigm that doesn't work without the ability to create extremely lightweight threads, which is what the BEAM provides.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  Apparently it has feature parity with the BEAM, but lacks support for NIFs https://github.com/GetFirefly/firefly#runtime https://github.com/GetFirefly/firefly#runtime
  - bitwalker 4y ago
    It doesn't currently, but you are correct that the goal is to maintain feature parity with the BEAM (with explicit caveats to that, namely hot code loading). There actually is support for NIFs, just not via the erl_nif interface that NIFs use today, support for that will arrive eventually.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  BEAM isn't the only runtime possible with green threads. OTP is just the libraries. Lots of people have written alternatives to BEAM. The only problem they run into is that BEAM is very good, and would be tough to beat. I was an admirer of Erlang on Xen: https://github.com/cloudozer/ling https://github.com/cloudozer/ling
- freedomben 4y ago
  I don't understand, isn't the BEAM just a software runtime that provides a lightweight thread implementation that OTP can use? Why couldn't they implement an alternative that runs on WASI? I agree that Elixir without OTP becomes much less useful, but there could be some changes to the language to enable in-process state changes so that you wouldn't be limited to a single process and the immutability restrictions that would make that very difficult to do anything useful with. I'm sure they thought of this problem and have a solution in some form.
  - bitwalker 4y ago
    Correct, the BEAM is just one implementation of the runtime, there can (and have) been others. Firefly aims to be as close to the BEAM semantics as possible, but there will naturally be some differences as we're taking a different approach with compilation, with some benefits as a result, but naturally there are also tradeoffs.

OTP is a programming library/paradigm that doesn't work without the ability to create extremely lightweight threads, which is what the BEAM provides.

peoplefromibiza 4y ago
Apparently it has feature parity with the BEAM, but lacks support for NIFs https://github.com/GetFirefly/firefly#runtime https://github.com/GetFirefly/firefly#runtime
- bitwalker 4y ago
  It doesn't currently, but you are correct that the goal is to maintain feature parity with the BEAM (with explicit caveats to that, namely hot code loading). There actually is support for NIFs, just not via the erl_nif interface that NIFs use today, support for that will arrive eventually.
pessimizer 4y ago
BEAM isn't the only runtime possible with green threads. OTP is just the libraries. Lots of people have written alternatives to BEAM. The only problem they run into is that BEAM is very good, and would be tough to beat. I was an admirer of Erlang on Xen: https://github.com/cloudozer/ling https://github.com/cloudozer/ling
freedomben 4y ago
I don't understand, isn't the BEAM just a software runtime that provides a lightweight thread implementation that OTP can use? Why couldn't they implement an alternative that runs on WASI? I agree that Elixir without OTP becomes much less useful, but there could be some changes to the language to enable in-process state changes so that you wouldn't be limited to a single process and the immutability restrictions that would make that very difficult to do anything useful with. I'm sure they thought of this problem and have a solution in some form.
- bitwalker 4y ago
  Correct, the BEAM is just one implementation of the runtime, there can (and have) been others. Firefly aims to be as close to the BEAM semantics as possible, but there will naturally be some differences as we're taking a different approach with compilation, with some benefits as a result, but naturally there are also tradeoffs.