[erlang-questions] Cryptic error messages

[Will.Irwin@REDACTED]

I am running 1:11b5 on Ubuntu (that's the latest version in Ubuntu's
package management system, though I see there is a 1:12 out now). 

I am getting really cryptic messages in response to any error that I
make. 

For example: 

(ping@REDACTED)1> M = 5. 
5 
(ping@REDACTED)2> M = 6. 

=ERROR REPORT==== 26-Mar-2008::14:01:34 === 
Error in process <0.37.0> on node 'ping@REDACTED' with exit value:
{{badmatch,6},[{erl_eval,expr,3}]} 

** exited: {{badmatch,6},[{erl_eval,expr,3}]} ** 

Huh? 

... whereas from reading the Getting Started with Erlang tutorial, I was
expecting a message like: 

** exception error: no match of right hand side value 6 

Am I doing something wrong, or is this the way it is in the version I
have? 

(For my second day running Erlang, error messages like this are not
exactly helping my learning curve  )

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