[erlang-questions] Why are messages between processes copied?

[Pierpaolo Bernardi]

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 09:46, Masklinn <masklinn@REDACTED> wrote:

>> And I'm doubtful
>> that many cases could be identified where a none of the terms part of
>> the data sent would be kept in the process sending the message.
>
> Yes, so am I. It would mostly be useful for small one-off messages, and
> because Erlang has no "unique" semantics (à la rust) it wouldn't work
> when messages are being sent from a function (which is pretty much
> always the case when using OTP).

This topic has been discussed several times on this m.l. and in other places.

If you google "erlang shared heap" and the same + paper or +
dissertation, you'll find many useful references, analyzing the pros
and cons of the various solutions.

For example, you may start from here
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=erlang+shared+heap

HTH
P.