[erlang-questions] Erlang and beam-based scripting languages.

[Garrett Smith]

On Sat, Sep 17, 2011 at 5:40 AM, Max Lapshin <max.lapshin@REDACTED> wrote:
> Look. I can do "make", "rebar compile", "cap deploy" or whatever else.
>
> Question is: what can do a low-priced deploy engineer, that will be
> hired by my customer?
> How does it raise TCO of my product?
>
>
> I think (and I will check during following year) that using of
> ruby-like scripting will make it easier and cheaper.
> Scripting, that works without any deploy commands.

I can see where this would be desirable. PHP enjoys this natively.
Python, with some trivial dynamic reloading, etc.

I don't think you need to go as far as using a different language though.

 If had enough incentive to go write (or wait for) a different
language for this application, here's what I'd try first:

- Reconceive of "escript" files as your unit of dynamic code,
replacing the "main" function with whatever makes sense for your
application (e.g. a web request handler)

- Use Erlang's excellent scan/parse/eval tool chain to dynamically
load the file's list of functions and call your entry point

You could do this with dynamically loaded functions as well, ala erlydtl.

This would be an application specific framework that you provided your
customers, rather than a generic solution. But I think it has some
advantages over reimplimenting the entire language:

- You avoid reimplementing the entire language :)

It has the disadvantage of shoe-horning your users into a limited
framework, but it sounds like this might be what you want anyway.
You'd have to provide a tool to verify your customer's code. But not
hard.

Garrett