I found learning Erlang difficult since pattern matching is poorly justified in the material I came across. You don't see the benefit right off the bat. Also,

I found learning Erlang difficult since pattern matching is poorly justified in the material I came across. You don't see the benefit right off the bat. Also, the "processes only" model is pretty off-putting compared to Scala IMO where you're able to choose between threads and processes. You lose _some_ benefit in reliability (I assume, since it's said so often), but I've never seen that actually play out in the real world. What I have seen is comparably slow IPC exactly a real world development cost. So I'm personally more of a "in-process first" kinda guy. I may be completely wrong on that one BTW. It's just what I recall from reading half of some Erlang book and studying online material trying to pick up the language. It wasn't until Scala and Akka that the benefits of both pattern-matching and actors really clicked with me. Though I still prefer Scala's versions on both counts so I don't feel a great need to revisit Erlang at this point since I'm not working with Telco equipment. ;-)