A Joeish Erlang distribution (long)

[Francesco Cesarini]

>   I totally disagree  - The OTP libraries "jump start"  you into a way
> of programming fault tolerant apps. 

> 
>   If you haven't  thought long and deeply about how  to program FT apps
> then by all means use the  generics (that's what they are there for) -
> If  you are  in a  BIG project  use the  generics (that's  so  you can
> understand the other peoples code).
> 
> Once you get good at this you can start "rolling you own" -

 > I usually re-invent gen_server for *every different complex program
 > I write* they are subtly different - often the resultant code is much
 > prettier - and *much* more inefficient I'm proud to say :-)

I think we are pretty much into the same line of thought, and I don't 
agree that we disagree :-p. The discussion where I jumped in was on the 
steep learning curve of OTP.

Correct me if I am wrong, but writing your own behaviors means you are 
using the OTP's design principles, but not the generic libraries. I 
think it is pretty rare for the average Joe to go as far as developing 
their own behaviors in their first couple of projects (even if they 
might soon pick up and start patching in places where OTP's 
functionality is not enough).

The majority of the people evaluating Erlang are self learned. 
Prototypes are excellent excuses to learn Erlang and test suitability, 
but for them, going ahead and building a product without the OTP design 
principles will mean a lot of extra work and is not recommended. Their 
energy should instead be placed in the learning curve. If you put Joe, 
Klacke, Jocke and others with years of large scale Erlang SW development 
in one room, then anything goes.. But right now, I doubt that is the 
reality out there (Even if I am happy to say that this is changing.. 
Just give it a couple of years).

Back to work..
Francesco
--
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