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Would the Erlang/Elixir platform be useful for small/hobbyist developers? Everything I've read on it makes it seem very domain-specific, considering its history

by mehrzad 12y ago

Would the Erlang/Elixir platform be useful for small/hobbyist developers? Everything I've read on it makes it seem very domain-specific, considering its history in telecommunications.

xj9 12y ago
I certainly think so! Its a bit of a paradigm shift, being a functional language and all, but once you wrap your head around it the platform is friendly and powerful. I was able to deploy a CB app on a Debian VPS within an hour or so of getting into the documentation.
thraxil 12y ago
I don't know exactly what you mean by "small/hobbyist developers". Yeah, Erlang really shines for high-availability, high concurrency network and distributed systems stuff, which it was designed for, but many of the properties that make it successful in that area are useful elsewhere as well. First, obviously, a great deal of web and database stuff is network programming and distributed systems when you get down to it so web servers, proxies, websockets, messaging, etc are all well within Erlang's domain. Here's a demo of someone using Erlang as firmware for a Drone, doing hot code-swapping while it's in the air: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96UzSHyp0F8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96UzSHyp0F8 Erlang's bit packing/unpacking syntax (http://www.erlang.org/doc/programming_examples/bit_syntax.html http://www.erlang.org/doc/programming_examples/bit_syntax.ht...) is really nice to work with. It came out of a need to handle binary wire protocols, but it means that it can also be nice for any kind of binary file format parsing that you might need to do. ErlangOnXen (http://erlangonxen.org/ http://erlangonxen.org/) is really interesting if you are into operating systems and virtualization stuff. Erlang's not very focused on heavy numeric processing so you don't see it much in science domains, but the actor model that it's built on maps well to Agent Based Modeling: http://www.research.ucf.edu/Swarmfest/Program_Day2/Gene%20Sher_FINAL_ABM_Using_Erlang.pdf http://www.research.ucf.edu/Swarmfest/Program_Day2/Gene%20Sh...
- digitalzombie 12y ago
  There's also a book, Handbook of Neuroevolution Through Erlang. > First, obviously, a great deal of web and database stuff is network programming and distributed systems when you get down to it so web servers, proxies, websockets, messaging, etc are all well within Erlang's domain. Caveats with database is their driver. Cassandra for example does not have official supported drivers and I've met a gentleman that worked for TigerText company have complains that it was pretty bad. So Erlang having small user base have less official driver support.
MCRed 12y ago
In my opinion, Elixir, plus the elixir frameworks that are out there, plus Couchbase gives you super powers. As and individual developer (though I'm getting help soon) I feel I'm able to accomplish orders of magnitude more faster....
davidw 12y ago
If you know what you're doing, yes. If you just need to do web apps without knowing the particulars, I'd go with Rails. If you need to support a lot of concurrent users, or do anything with websockets, or streaming, or that kind of thing, Elixir and Erlang would make a fine choice.

by mehrzad 12y ago

Would the Erlang/Elixir platform be useful for small/hobbyist developers? Everything I've read on it makes it seem very domain-specific, considering its history in telecommunications.

xj9 12y ago

I certainly think so! Its a bit of a paradigm shift, being a functional language and all, but once you wrap your head around it the platform is friendly and powerful. I was able to deploy a CB app on a Debian VPS within an hour or so of getting into the documentation.

thraxil 12y ago

I don't know exactly what you mean by "small/hobbyist developers". Yeah, Erlang really shines for high-availability, high concurrency network and distributed systems stuff, which it was designed for, but many of the properties that make it successful in that area are useful elsewhere as well. First, obviously, a great deal of web and database stuff is network programming and distributed systems when you get down to it so web servers, proxies, websockets, messaging, etc are all well within Erlang's domain. Here's a demo of someone using Erlang as firmware for a Drone, doing hot code-swapping while it's in the air: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96UzSHyp0F8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96UzSHyp0F8 Erlang's bit packing/unpacking syntax (http://www.erlang.org/doc/programming_examples/bit_syntax.html http://www.erlang.org/doc/programming_examples/bit_syntax.ht...) is really nice to work with. It came out of a need to handle binary wire protocols, but it means that it can also be nice for any kind of binary file format parsing that you might need to do. ErlangOnXen (http://erlangonxen.org/ http://erlangonxen.org/) is really interesting if you are into operating systems and virtualization stuff. Erlang's not very focused on heavy numeric processing so you don't see it much in science domains, but the actor model that it's built on maps well to Agent Based Modeling: http://www.research.ucf.edu/Swarmfest/Program_Day2/Gene%20Sher_FINAL_ABM_Using_Erlang.pdf http://www.research.ucf.edu/Swarmfest/Program_Day2/Gene%20Sh...

digitalzombie 12y ago
There's also a book, Handbook of Neuroevolution Through Erlang. > First, obviously, a great deal of web and database stuff is network programming and distributed systems when you get down to it so web servers, proxies, websockets, messaging, etc are all well within Erlang's domain. Caveats with database is their driver. Cassandra for example does not have official supported drivers and I've met a gentleman that worked for TigerText company have complains that it was pretty bad. So Erlang having small user base have less official driver support.

MCRed 12y ago

In my opinion, Elixir, plus the elixir frameworks that are out there, plus Couchbase gives you super powers. As and individual developer (though I'm getting help soon) I feel I'm able to accomplish orders of magnitude more faster....

davidw 12y ago

If you know what you're doing, yes. If you just need to do web apps without knowing the particulars, I'd go with Rails. If you need to support a lot of concurrent users, or do anything with websockets, or streaming, or that kind of thing, Elixir and Erlang would make a fine choice.