Brujo Benavides
Erlang Developer and Trainer. Working at Baxter. Member of the Education WG @ The EEF. …long distant walker, amateur table tennis player and proud father!
Why Erlang?
by Brujo Benavides
Scalability
What runs with 10 users,
can run with 10M users!
Concurrency
It's ideal for soft real-time systems.
Fault Tolerance
Let it crash!
Hot Code Updates
You can update your systems with no stopping time.
Praise 👍
- Scalability
- Concurrency
- Fault Tolerance
- Hot Code Updates
Critics 👎
- No Types
- Hard to Learn
- Slow for Math
- No IDE
- …
The Unsung Benefits of the Erlang Ecosystem
words.erl-module words.
words.erl-module words.
-export [test/0].
test() ->
true = words:is_palindrome(""),
true = words:is_palindrome("a"),
true = words:is_palindrome("aa"),
true = words:is_palindrome("aba"),
false = words:is_palindrome("ab"),
false = words:is_palindrome("abca"),
'✅'.words.erl-module words.
-export [test/0].
test() ->
true = words:is_palindrome(""),
true = words:is_palindrome("a"),
true = words:is_palindrome("aa"),
true = words:is_palindrome("aba"),
false = words:is_palindrome("ab"),
false = words:is_palindrome("abca"),
'✅'.words.erl1> {ok, words} = c(words), words:test().
** exception error:
undefined function words:is_palindrome/1
in function words:test/0
(words.erl, line 6)
2>
words.erl-module words.
-export [test/0, is_palindrome/1].
test() ->
…
is_palindrome("") -> true;
is_palindrome([_]) -> true;
is_palindrome([First | Rest]) ->
[Last | Others] = lists:reverse(Rest),
First == Last andalso
is_palindrome(Others).
words.erl-module words.
-export [test/0, is_palindrome/1].
test() ->
…
is_palindrome("") -> true;
words.erl-module words.
-export [test/0, is_palindrome/1].
test() ->
…
is_palindrome("") -> true;
is_palindrome([_]) -> true;
words.erl-module words.
-export [test/0, is_palindrome/1].
test() ->
…
is_palindrome("") -> true;
is_palindrome([_]) -> true;
is_palindrome([First | Rest]) ->
words.erl-module words.
-export [test/0, is_palindrome/1].
test() ->
…
is_palindrome("") -> true;
is_palindrome([_]) -> true;
is_palindrome([First | Rest]) ->
[Last | Others] = lists:reverse(Rest),
words.erl-module words.
-export [test/0, is_palindrome/1].
test() ->
…
is_palindrome("") -> true;
is_palindrome([_]) -> true;
is_palindrome([First | Rest]) ->
[Last | Others] = lists:reverse(Rest),
First == Last andalso
words.erl-module words.
-export [test/0, is_palindrome/1].
test() ->
…
is_palindrome("") -> true;
is_palindrome([_]) -> true;
is_palindrome([First | Rest]) ->
[Last | Others] = lists:reverse(Rest),
First == Last andalso
is_palindrome(Others).
words.erl15> i().
Pid Initial Call Heap Reds Msgs
Registered Current Function Stack
<0.0.0> erl_init:start/2 987 5342 0
init init:loop/1 3
<0.1.0> erts_code_purger:start/0 1 11 0
erts_code_purger erlang:hibernate/3 1
<0.2.0> erts_literal_area_collector:start 1 10 0
erlang:hibernate/3 1
<0.3.0> erts_dirty_process_signal_handler 233 722 0
erts_dirty_process_signal_handler 3
<0.4.0> erts_dirty_process_signal_handler 233 9 0
erts_dirty_process_signal_handler 3
<0.5.0> erts_dirty_process_signal_handler 233 9 0
erts_dirty_process_signal_handler 3
<0.6.0> prim_file:start/0 233 8 0
prim_file:helper_loop/0 2
<0.7.0> socket_registry:start/0 233 10 0
socket_registry socket_registry:loop/1 5
<0.10.0> erlang:apply/2 6772 54663 0
erl_prim_loader erl_prim_loader:loop/3 7
<0.42.0> logger_server:init/1 987 668 0
logger gen_server:loop/7 12
<0.44.0> erlang:apply/2 1598 1177 0
application_controlle gen_server:loop/7 8
<0.46.0> application_master:init/4 376 45 0
application_master:main_loop/2 8
<0.47.0> application_master:start_it/4 233 493 0
application_master:loop_it/4 7
<0.49.0> supervisor:kernel/1 987 2736 0
more (y/n)? (y)16> erlang:process_info(<0.44.0>).
[{registered_name,application_controller},
{current_function,{gen_server,loop,7}},
{initial_call,{erlang,apply,2}},
{status,waiting},
{message_queue_len,0},
{links,[<0.46.0>,<0.0.0>]},
{dictionary,[{'$initial_call',{application_controller,start, 1}},
{'$ancestors',[<0.9.0>]}]},
{trap_exit,true},
{error_handler,error_handler},
{priority,normal},
{group_leader,<0.64.0>},
{total_heap_size,2589},
{heap_size,1598},
{stack_size,8},
{reductions,1179},
{garbage_collection,[{max_heap_size,
#{error_logger => true,
kill => true,
size => 0}},
{min_bin_vheap_size,46422},
{min_heap_size,233},
{fullsweep_after,65535},
{minor_gcs,4}]},
{suspending,[]}]17> sys:get_status(<0.44.0>).
{status,<0.44.0>,
{module,gen_server},
[[{'$initial_call',{application_controller,start,1}},
{'$ancestors',[<0.9.0>]}],
running,<0.9.0>,[],
[{header,"Status for generic server application_controller"},
{data,[{"Status",running},
{"Parent",<0.9.0>},
{"Logged events",[]}]},
{data,[{"State",
{state,[],[],[],
[{stdlib,undefined},{kernel,<0.46.0>}],
[],
[{stdlib,permanent},{kernel,permanent}],
[],[]}}]}]]}
Tracing
Elixir / Gleam
Erlang
- Project management: rebar3
- Linter: Elvis / rebar_lint
- Formatters:
- Static Code Checkers:
- Spell Checker: Sheldon
- Language Server Providers:
Erlang
- Project management: rebar3
- Linter: Elvis / rebar_lint
- Formatters:
- Static Code Checkers:
- Spell Checker: Sheldon
- Language Server Providers:
- Multi-platform / JIT
- It's mostly just back-end
- i.e., no fashion consultancy :)
- Many problems alredy solved
- GC… what's that thing?
- Distributed systems… of course!
- Protocol parsing… easy!
- Whole stack built-in
- Database
- Web Server
- File System Management
- …
Thanks!
Contact me via email or Twitter/X if you have any questions.
Or you can find me anywhere as @elbrujohalcon
https://slides.com/elbrujohalcon/why-erlang
Why Erlang? @ the functional lab
By Brujo Benavides
Why Erlang? @ the functional lab
The Unsung benefits of the Erlang Ecosystem
