Given how popular Erlang was three or four years ago I think that its current popularity is quite stunning. Back then the learning curve was quite a bit steepe

Given how popular Erlang was three or four years ago I think that its current popularity is quite stunning. Back then the learning curve was quite a bit steeper since we lacked Joe's book, lots of interesting and informative blog posts, and the current variety of modules and systems to examine and play with. Info about Python, Rails, .NET/LINQ, and even Java is the sort of stuff that helps a large portion of the programming community get things done in their daily tasks. For most people languages like Erlang, Haskell, Clojure, and Lisp are interesting diversions that they might one day aspire to be able to get paid for, what info that is out there is mostly provided to share the joy of the language and the problems it can solve rather than trying to keep you from going postal at your day job.