[erlang-questions] What do you like the most about Erlang/OTP?

Loïc Hoguin essen@REDACTED
Wed Aug 29 13:24:32 CEST 2012


Thanks to everyone for helping.

So far I've been able to put all these things into 6 key categories. 
This is obviously not fully done but I'd like to hear your thoughts on 
it. If you have anything to add you're welcome too! Categorization might 
not be the best either.

Write less, better code
* Pattern matching
* Bit syntax
* Simple base language
* DSLs
* Only worry about success cases (links to crash and fault tolerance)

Fault tolerant concurrency by design
* Erlang models the real world
* Lightweight processes
* Fine-grained process isolation
* Shared nothing messaging, messages processed in the order we want
* Crash early, crash often (catch errors where they happen)

A better OS for your applications
* OTP
* A system as a collection of small separate components
* Understandability and maintainability
* Upgrade without the need for restarting
* Numerous ways to inspect, debug and trace running nodes
* Combine many stacks without interference

Distributed
* Easy to setup, easy to manage
* Same code for talking to a local or a remote process

Community
* Nice, welcoming people
* Modest people, no drama queen
* Experts willing to share their knowledge

Mature
* Code unlikely to break in future versions
* Sound design principles for building robust systems (OTP)
* Numerous testing tools
* Property-based testing

-- 
Loïc Hoguin
Erlang Cowboy
Nine Nines
http://ninenines.eu



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