[erlang-questions] Attracting Functional Programmers

[David Welton]

> I think we have to answer the question:
>
>     "what is the compelling reason to use Erlang?"

Right.  And it really has got to be something that it does *much*
better.  A 10% advantage won't make people give up their
libraries/acquired knowledge in other languages/etc...

> Its not ('cos it's FP)

> The  2 second pitch which I used at JAOO was
>
> Erlang = Parallel programming without pain
>
> I'm not sure if this is best - it could be
>
> Fault-tolerant ptogramming without pain or
>
> Multicore programming wthout pain

>From my point of view, "parallel programming" is more immediate than
"fault tolerant".  It's simple, and very clear that concurrency in
most popular languages is painful.  "Fault tolerant" probably has less
appeal to the average programmer who muddles through with whatever
they use currently.  I think it's a vaguer image to sell, as well.
Sounds like an added bonus rather than the key selling point.  There
are probably people who would regard it as key, but there are likely
more who are interested in concurrency.

Thanks,
-- 
David N. Welton
http://www.welton.it/davidw/