[erlang-questions] Learning Erlang from the scratch

[Jay Parlar]

On 8/31/07, Joe Armstrong <erlang@REDACTED> wrote:
> The book was specifically written with Java programmers in mind.
>
> When I started the book my target audience was Erlang programmers - but
> Dave Thomas soon convinced me that I was wrong and that I should target
> Java programmers. As the book progressed we tested the text on some
> tame Java programmers and adjusted the text to suit the audience.
>
> No previous knowledge of any functional programming language is assumed
> and the introduction to unfamiliar concepts like "assign once variables" is
> taken pretty slowly with lots of examples.

I'm a Python programmer, and the book has been fantastic for me. It's
also the first time I felt like I really "got" functional programming
(in terms of pattern matching). I've used
map/filter/apply/list-comprehensions in Python before, but trying to
learn Haskell, I could never comprehend how to write entire programs
with that style. With Joe's book and writing style, everything has
just clicked for me.

Jay P.