[erlang-questions] Erlang book now shipping

[KatolaZ]

On Fri, Jul 20, 2007 at 09:29:20AM +0200, Joe Armstrong wrote:
> 
> I see Erlang + Haskell + OCaml as a collection of languages with similar roots.
> They are all based on the lambda calculus and don't have mutable data. This way
> of thinking is strange at first - since you have to learn to program
> without side-effects
> (or at least with minimal side effects) - these three languages differ
> in interpretation
> (strong/dynamic types) (lazy/eager evaluation) but lambda calculus is
> not about types
> or evaluation strategies.
> 
> An erlang book all by itself in a bookshop will get rather lonely.
> 
> I want to see an entire shelf full of Erlang/Haskell/OCaml books *and
> their applications*
> Only then will we have a realistic alternative to Java/C++/C# or
> python/ruby/perl
>
> If we want to challenge OOPs then it must be through the concerted efforts of an
> entire school of languages.

I totally agree with you, joe. It is not simply a matter of pushing
Erlang/OTP. A deeper change of minds is requested in order to get
people writing faster, cleaner, simpler, smarter and cooler code. And
what I call "The functional way" is more or less your point of view:
we need to show people that THOSE languages (mainly
Erlang/Haskell/OCaml) are not just suitable for academic purposes, but
can really and effectively change the way of writing, debugging,
refactoring code.

More books explaining this (indeed not so) new paradigm should be
written, explaining coders and hackers how to spend less time, less
efforts and less pains obtaining better code and/or getting more fun,
and explaining software farms that Java/C#/C++ are not the best
solution all the way. 

I'm actually not able to write any chapter of such books, since I've
still a lot to learn about those languages and platforms, but many
gurus here could start such a project, and should do so. Waterstone's
have full shelves of Java and C# books, and less than ten books about
functional languages, the majority of them being really old..... 

It's too few. 

HND

Enzo

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[ Enzo Nicosia aka KatolaZ --- GLUG Catania -- Freaknet Medialab ]
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