A Joeish Erlang distribution (long)

[Joakim G.]

OK. I rest my case.

/Jocke

Joe Armstrong wrote:
>>I look forward to hearing Joe's comments (and everybody else's as well, of course!). 
> 
> 
>   Yes -  this is  all very  flattering - and  I really  appreciate the
> attempt to find more things for me  to do :-) - for some reason people
> seem to  think I  can't think  of things to  do so  they come  up with
> helpful suggests for things I might like to do ..
> 
>   My wife, for  example, thinks that if I haven't  got anything else to
> do than "clicking  away on that computer" I  could do something useful
> like washing the cat or feeding the dishes ... sigh
> 
>   On reflection I'm against this - why?  - The Erlang OTP release is a
> very high quality release - I  wouldn't like people to think that there
> were several different Erlang's and have to put them in the position of
> having to choose "which is the better"  of these - as far as new users
> are concerned  there should be only  ONE Erlang and  that's the Erlang
> that you get from the OTP people.
> 
>   I would, however, like to see a much smaller core release.
> 
>   In  order  to  compile up  the  OTP  release  I  need to  have  Java
> installed, and I need to compile  up loads of things that I will never
> use.
> 
>   When I get and build Erlang I  have to wait a longish time while all
> the  corba and  ASN.1 and  XYZ stuff  is compiled.   Now cobra  is, no
> doubt, absolutely splendid - but I  have never ever used it nor have I
> had the  slightest desire to  use it, so  as far as I'm  concerned, it
> might as well  not clutter up my disk  - if I want it I'll  go and get
> it.
> 
>   Even  worse, sometimes  an  error occurring  when  compiling up  some
> application that I have zero interest in - breaks the build process.
> 
>   People have  said to  me "Erlang  is very big"  the download  is XXX
> MBytes -  but this  is because of  the large  number of apps  that are
> bundled into the main tarball.
> 
>   The  next  small  step  for  mankind  would  be  to  split  off  the
> applications from the core and distribute them separately.
> 
>   Core Erlang should be just the compiler and the essential run-time -
> nothing else - I think this would make the system easier to understand
> and manage.
> 
>   I'd also like  to see many more "stand  alone applications" that are
> written  using only  the  core -  these  would be  programs that  "did
> something useful" - a lot of the contributions are "libraries that you
> can use to build fun things" rather than "fun things" - yaws and wings
> are outstanding examples of these.
> 
>  /Joe
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>   


-- 
If you think the pen is mightier than the sword, the next time someone
pulls out a sword I'd like to see you get up there with your Bic.