You can certainly port slow Erlang code to C, but it's not as straightforward as doing so in, say, Python or Ruby. For one, if your C code crashes, it's not the

You can certainly port slow Erlang code to C, but it's not as straightforward as doing so in, say, Python or Ruby. For one, if your C code crashes, it's not the calling Erlang process that crashes, but the entire VM [1]. Second, NIF implementations are supposed to cooperate with the BEAM scheduler and only run for 1ms at a time. jlouis points out that most NIFs fail at this [2]. Third (and maybe the expectation here is too great), binary data (structs, etc.) used/provided by NIFs are "magic binaries" which cannot be pattern matched and are represented in crashes, the REPL, etc. as "<<>>" which can be confusing [3]. [1] http://www.erlang.org/doc/man/erl_nif.html http://www.erlang.org/doc/man/erl_nif.html (see "Warning") [2] http://jlouisramblings.blogspot.com/2013/07/problematic-traits-in-erlang.html#nif-abuse http://jlouisramblings.blogspot.com/2013/07/problematic-trai... [3] http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-patches/2011-April/002046.html http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-patches/2011-April/002046...