[erlang-questions] Time for OTP to be Renamed?

[Dave Cottlehuber]

On 13 February 2014 14:47, Fred Hebert <mononcqc@REDACTED> wrote:
> Oh and I also like to take the approach where every feature is
> introduced as solving a specific problem -- that's how I try to get to
> reader to see it as important or worth looking into. How do you sell the
> idea of OTP without first encountering the problems it solves? Things
> write themselves more or less naturally when you start with mailboxes
> and say "hot damn this gets repeated a lot."
>
> There's a lot of validity in wanting to show people how to wrap their
> code into a functioning application, into libraries, and into
> supervision trees. It would probably save a lot of bad code or
> half-wrapped applications that discover OTP too late and then need a
> rewrite.
>
> I however have a hard time expecting to see the benefits when the target
> audience possibly doesn't know how to write a list lookup function
> recursively with the use of pattern matching in the first place,
> however. Maybe when the general public is more familiar with functional
> style, it will be easier to jump into OTP early.
>
> Until then, OTP *is* advanced for a large part of the population who
> doesn't have the functional prerequisites to feel at home in a language
> like Erlang at *any* level.
>
> Regards,
> Fred.

Thanks Fred,

An insightful response. Where do you see behaviours in all this?

The context is that I've recently advocated introducing behaviours
very early on (not full gen_* behaviours), but just as a really simple
step in learning erlang, same as adding tests, using typer & dialyzer,
in helping enforce API contracts between modules. It seems to ease the
shock of the first encounter with gen_server etc, removing a bit more
of the black magic up front.

A+
Dave