Yeah, NIFs are dynamically linked into the running VM, and generally speaking, if you load a binary library, you can do whatever, including crashing the VM. BE

Yeah, NIFs are dynamically linked into the running VM, and generally speaking, if you load a binary library, you can do whatever, including crashing the VM. BEAM has 4 ways to closely integrate with native code: NIFs, linked in ports, OS process ports (fork/ecommunicate over a pipe), and foreign nodes (C Nodes). You can also integrate through normal networking or pipes too. Everything has plusses and minusses.