4 ms·

Inertia: curly braces rule the world. Imperative/OO programming are ubiquitous, FP not so much. Corporate sponsorship: even with curly braces and mutability, G

Inertia: curly braces rule the world. Imperative/OO programming are ubiquitous, FP not so much. Corporate sponsorship: even with curly braces and mutability, Go probably wouldn't have gained its mindshare without Google. Performance: It's getting much better, but the BEAM was never designed for maximum performance. People don't like slow platforms, despite the other advantages. Scale: much like one of the databases written in Erlang, Riak, you typically don't need a BEAM language until your solution is large enough that you've already written it in something else. I love Erlang, but I'm a lost cause.

ambicapter 2y ago
> Performance: It's getting much better, but the BEAM was never designed for maximum performance. People don't like slow platforms, despite the other advantages. > Scale: much like one of the databases written in Erlang, Riak, you typically don't need a BEAM language until your solution is large enough that you've already written it in something else. These two seem to contradict one another. How can it not be fast but scale well (I'm thinking of a way as I type this but I'll let you answer)?
- ffsm8 2y ago
  Latency vs throughput. If you just want to do 1+1, 1 million times in a sequence, then erlang will likely be one of the last to complete the challenge. If you want to do 1 million 1+1 in parallel, then erlang will get you there with minimal overhead, even if each number crunched will take longer then java, golang etc... the way it branches out is very efficient
- peoplefromibiza 2y ago
  > How can it not be fast but scale well soft realtime: Erlang gets slower with load, but keeps responding fault tolerance: it's very hard to bring an Erlang application to a grinding halt distribution: it's stupid easy to distribute an Erlang application and scale it horizontally
- paradox460 2y ago
  You can do one thing fast, or many things slowly. For many common applications, doing many things slow is more important than off-the-starting-block performance
- bcrosby95 2y ago
  When people talk about scaling they usually mean horizontally (more computers) rather than vertically (a more powerful computer). Scaling like this tends to involve your system actually performing worse because, among other things, it has to go across the network.
giancarlostoro 2y ago
If curly braces rule the world explain Python? Some pretty well known apps are powered by Django. Doing AI/ML without Python is doable but not quite as mainstream.
- macintux 2y ago
  Sure, there are exceptions to every rule. Python is close enough to pseudocode that beginners can get familiar with the basic syntax easily.
  - giancarlostoro 2y ago
    I am not talking about beginner level software though. We are talking millions of users, very serious software.

ambicapter 2y ago

> Performance: It's getting much better, but the BEAM was never designed for maximum performance. People don't like slow platforms, despite the other advantages. > Scale: much like one of the databases written in Erlang, Riak, you typically don't need a BEAM language until your solution is large enough that you've already written it in something else. These two seem to contradict one another. How can it not be fast but scale well (I'm thinking of a way as I type this but I'll let you answer)?

ffsm8 2y ago
Latency vs throughput. If you just want to do 1+1, 1 million times in a sequence, then erlang will likely be one of the last to complete the challenge. If you want to do 1 million 1+1 in parallel, then erlang will get you there with minimal overhead, even if each number crunched will take longer then java, golang etc... the way it branches out is very efficient
peoplefromibiza 2y ago
> How can it not be fast but scale well soft realtime: Erlang gets slower with load, but keeps responding fault tolerance: it's very hard to bring an Erlang application to a grinding halt distribution: it's stupid easy to distribute an Erlang application and scale it horizontally
paradox460 2y ago
You can do one thing fast, or many things slowly. For many common applications, doing many things slow is more important than off-the-starting-block performance
bcrosby95 2y ago
When people talk about scaling they usually mean horizontally (more computers) rather than vertically (a more powerful computer). Scaling like this tends to involve your system actually performing worse because, among other things, it has to go across the network.

giancarlostoro 2y ago

If curly braces rule the world explain Python? Some pretty well known apps are powered by Django. Doing AI/ML without Python is doable but not quite as mainstream.

macintux 2y ago
Sure, there are exceptions to every rule. Python is close enough to pseudocode that beginners can get familiar with the basic syntax easily.
- giancarlostoro 2y ago
  I am not talking about beginner level software though. We are talking millions of users, very serious software.