[erlang-questions] data sharing is outside the semantics of Erlang, but it sure is useful

[Michael Turner]

On 9/16/2009, "Ulf Wiger" <ulf.wiger@REDACTED> wrote:

>Michael Turner wrote:
>>
>> Not sure that I'm totally sold on the Erlang Way of doing things, being
>> pretty new to the language.  But in this particular case (or even for
>> generalizations of it), I don't see why the Erlang Way (insofar as I
>> understand it) is necessarily inferior to anything requiring that the
>> language break with its general shared-nothing approach.  Did I miss
>> something?
>
>Again, two kinds of sharing here.

[Snip]

Interesting answer, but not an answer to my real question.  (Maybe I went
on for a paragraph too long.)

It seems that James is interested in data structure sharing IN THIS
PARTICULAR CASE because it gives him a kind of data compression.  Again,
if that's the goal, why is ordinary data compression *not* the answer
here?  If compression isn't the goal, what did I miss about the
(implicit) problem statement, to which sharing semantics in Erlang *is*
the answer?

-michael turner