[erlang-questions] Maps

[José Valim]

> Maps have the potential to replace proplists, dicts, and also some record
misuses, where an interface requires you to include a file to have the
records definition (the file example found in the EEP is one). They're much
more interesting to implement.

I am not sure realistically speaking how much Maps will replace proplists.
They are extensively used in OTP and maps don't really seem to provide a
huge advantage over them. My fear is adding more inconsistency to the
libraries since some will accept maps as options, others accept proplists.
The benefits would have to be considerable to replace proplists and I don't
think it is the case now.

But I agree; they can replace a good amount of dict usage (hard to say if
it will be a full replacement without proper benchmarks) and record misuses.

> Personally not having maps prevents me from doing a particular project,
unless I want to spend all my time manipulating dicts of dicts or records
of records. Hence my only question about the maps proposal about recursive
updating being built-in.

Agreed, nested access/updates are definitely a pain. Although there are
other ways to ease this, like:

    access:find_in(NestedStructure, [dict_key, #some_record.a, another_key])
    access:store_in(NestedStructure, [dict_key, #some_record.a,
another_key], Value)

So even if we don't get a recursive update built-in, it seems we can
provide good solutions to the problem.

*José Valim*
www.plataformatec.com.br
Skype: jv.ptec
Founder and Lead Developer


On Fri, May 10, 2013 at 8:34 AM, Loïc Hoguin <essen@REDACTED> wrote:

> On 05/10/2013 03:41 PM, Natesh Manikoth wrote:
>
>> Erlang newbie here. This comment therefore is not about the merits of
>> the proposals.
>> I detect a certain tendency to dismiss suggestions if the suggestions
>> are not germane to that particular user's current (or past) needs.
>>
>
> Not dismissing it here, I'd be happy to have both, but maps are solving a
> problem (dict manipulation is incredibly tedious and time consuming in
> Erlang) while frames simply improve what we already have.
>
> Personally not having maps prevents me from doing a particular project,
> unless I want to spend all my time manipulating dicts of dicts or records
> of records. Hence my only question about the maps proposal about recursive
> updating being built-in.
>
> Not having frames just requires me to know about a few pitfalls, but
> doesn't prevent me to get the job done.
>
>
> --
> Loïc Hoguin
> Erlang Cowboy
> Nine Nines
> http://ninenines.eu
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