<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:10pt"><div><span>OK, if the acronym drives your managers nuts, fork it, rename it (how about "Blue Gorilla", "Customer Yacht" or "Uhuru Scalable Mountain") and write in the docs that it's based on OTP </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">(tip: below the fold)</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">. I'm sure Erlang Solutions can sell your company Blue Gorilla training and contractors if you ask them. </span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span><br></span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; background-color:
transparent; font-style: normal;"><span>Best,</span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; background-color: transparent; font-style: normal;"><span>Thomas</span></div><div class="yahoo_quoted" style="display: block;"> <br> <br> <div style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> <div style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div dir="ltr"> <font size="2" face="Arial"> On Thursday, February 13, 2014 7:16 PM, kraythe . <kraythe@gmail.com> wrote:<br> </font> </div> <blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; margin-top: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"> <div class="y_msg_container"><div id="yiv8942092287"><div><div dir="ltr">I have read portions of your book and
appreciate your insight. However, I think you underestimate the task here. Convincing developers may be difficult, but if they are good devs they might come around. Convincing management with control over budget and staffing when the naming is wrong? Nearly impossible. Thats why massive advertising companies have made billions off of just naming things correctly. All of the other concerns you posted are very legit and I have had and still do have many of them myself. But those concerns are at the tech level and only of minor interest to the manager wondering why would he staff for erlang and not scala or ruby? </div>
<div class="yiv8942092287gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><b>Robert Simmons Jr. MSc. - Lead Java Architect @ EA</b></div><div style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><i>Author of: Hardcore Java (2003) and Maintainable Java (2012)</i></div>
<div><i style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">LinkedIn: </i><font face="arial"><i><a rel="nofollow" shape="rect" target="_blank" href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/robert-simmons/40/852/a39">http://www.linkedin.com/pub/robert-simmons/40/852/a39</a></i></font></div>
</div></div>
<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><div class="yiv8942092287yqt6092334291" id="yiv8942092287yqtfd50324"><div class="yiv8942092287gmail_quote">On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 12:05 PM, Fred Hebert <span dir="ltr"><<a rel="nofollow" shape="rect" ymailto="mailto:mononcqc@ferd.ca" target="_blank" href="mailto:mononcqc@ferd.ca">mononcqc@ferd.ca</a>></span> wrote:<br clear="none"><blockquote class="yiv8942092287gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
Answers inline.<br clear="none">
<div class="yiv8942092287"><br clear="none">
On 02/13, kraythe . wrote:<br clear="none">
> I Guess my answers would be:<br clear="none">
> 0) If there is a business case, you can convince them. Low adoption hurts<br clear="none">
> their maintainability and staffing much more than it does for the startup<br clear="none">
> or small company. They are a business, not a bunch of unreasonable oafs.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
</div>That may be doable. I'm not saying the opposite.<br clear="none">
<div class="yiv8942092287"><br clear="none">
> 1) Why rewrite the libs if you use the same initials. I wouldn't worry<br clear="none">
> about that. The programming world is replete with examples of such things.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
</div>If we can use the same initials, then that's gained and removes a bunch<br clear="none">
of issues.<br clear="none">
<div class="yiv8942092287"><br clear="none">
> 2) and updating the docs will take ... 10 man hours? Do we not have search<br clear="none">
> and replace capable tools?<br clear="none">
> 3) Same answer as 2.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
</div>Yes, but we do not have administration rights to mirrors, say<br clear="none">
<a rel="nofollow" shape="rect" target="_blank" href="http://erldocs.com/">http://erldocs.com/</a> and translations that can be hosted by the<br clear="none">
community.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
The work done with the OTP documentation goes further than the OTP team<br clear="none">
itself.<br clear="none">
<div class="yiv8942092287"><br clear="none">
> 4) Dont need to "make sure" of anything. If the books want to be accurate<br clear="none">
> they will use the new name, if not "shrug" thats their problem. Trust me<br clear="none">
> someone on amazon will post "Its not called Open Telecom Platform since<br clear="none">
> 2014, it stands for "Open Technology Platform". There are enough pedantic,<br clear="none">
> basement living, people on the internet that will annoy authors into<br clear="none">
> submission.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
</div>That doesn't sound like a pleasant experience for everyone. Again, it's<br clear="none">
not an insurmountable challenge. It's just one more challenge.<br clear="none">
<div class="yiv8942092287"><br clear="none">
> 5) Small matter of documentation. "It used to be called X but was renamed<br clear="none">
> to Y in 2014"<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
</div>Documentation lives on way longer than expected. People still read and<br clear="none">
order reprints of the Erlang book published in 1994 (and 1996 for the<br clear="none">
second edition), some of which are translations.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
Many older versions of books are what is in libraries and whatnot, since<br clear="none">
Joe's first version in early 2000s. For people using these versions, you<br clear="none">
end up with inaccurate terminology regarding half the name of the<br clear="none">
language.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
It's a matter of documentation, but it's a matter of trying to do it<br clear="none">
right to reduce the amount of confusion. If people look for "Open<br clear="none">
Telecom Platform Erlang" it would be sweet to get the new documentation<br clear="none">
and content.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
Maybe it's easy, but it's still part of a roadmap.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
Alternatively, would 'Open Telecom Platform, a framework that is not<br clear="none">
just about telecoms' going to be more cumbersome in documentation?<br clear="none">
<div class="yiv8942092287"><br clear="none">
> 6) History is history. Those investigating the language will get it. It<br clear="none">
> startedo ut being a telecoms thing and migrated to a general language. No<br clear="none">
> problem. Live web sites can easily add in blurbs. Old articles will be out<br clear="none">
> of date but not from the time frame of when they were written. No big deal.<br clear="none">
> The sky isnt actually falling.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
</div>I could see that being made as a decision, yes.<br clear="none">
<div class="yiv8942092287"><br clear="none">
> 7) Obviously this one is just frothing. The man could update the next<br clear="none">
> version of his book with more information, cool tricks, whatever and sell<br clear="none">
> it as a second edition.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
</div>Yes. I like to insert a bit of non-serious content here and there.<br clear="none">
<div class="yiv8942092287"><br clear="none">
> 8) What "traditional SDK" are you referring to? The LISP standard lib? ;-)<br clear="none">
> Java? C? Ruby? Haskell? Which one is the "normal" one? Normal is defined in<br clear="none">
> the context of the language, not in the context of another language? In<br clear="none">
> fact the vast majority of SDKs for java are third party to the JDK itself<br clear="none">
> anyway.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
</div>I went from this thread's usage of SDK as a similar point to OTP.<br clear="none">
Erlang/SDK if you will. If you want to keep it as Erlang/OTP, that can<br clear="none">
work, but needs to be significantly better than what it is right now to<br clear="none">
have an actually measurable impact.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
Otherwise, we're throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks, with no<br clear="none">
proof that it actually helped anything.<br clear="none">
<div class="yiv8942092287"><br clear="none">
> 9) Trying to crystal ball the future will only give you a headache. The key<br clear="none">
> is to move from where yo are to a point where progress has been made and<br clear="none">
> recursively loop on that algorithm, not be paralyzed by "what if .... ?"<br clear="none">
><br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
</div>Non-serious content here also. Not to be taken seriously, but I wouldn't<br clear="none">
be surprised if it were to happen.<br clear="none">
<div class="yiv8942092287"><br clear="none">
> You may have been doing Erlang for ages and feel quite the man but the<br clear="none">
> question really boils down to "what would you like for the future of Erlang<br clear="none">
> to be?" If the answer to that in your mind is "A niche language that I can<br clear="none">
> call myself a guru at and everyone looks at me quizzically and puts up with<br clear="none">
> my eccentricity or dare say arrogance." then the current name and trend is<br clear="none">
> fine. If the answer is, "A powerful general purpose programming language<br clear="none">
> for developing applications using functional paradigms and widely accepted<br clear="none">
> as being the solution to the next generation of software problems." Then<br clear="none">
> marketing is important.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
</div>Oh I love that one. I want Erlang to be adopted so much I wrote an<br clear="none">
entire book about it and put it online for free, without advertisement.<br clear="none">
This has taken over 3 years of my spare time, because I wanted Erlang to<br clear="none">
be more accessible. I invite you to visit it at<br clear="none">
<a rel="nofollow" shape="rect" target="_blank" href="http://learnyousomeerlang.com/">http://learnyousomeerlang.com</a>, and maybe buy an ebook or print copy if<br clear="none">
you feel like it would be nicer to read that way. If you prefer a free<br clear="none">
electronic copies, there are scripts on github to convert it to the<br clear="none">
kindle format, and a wget line in the FAQ to download a local copy.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
I also kept writing multiple blog posts at <a rel="nofollow" shape="rect" target="_blank" href="http://ferd.ca/">http://ferd.ca</a> that guide and<br clear="none">
show more tutorials about Erlang, use cases, and tries to sell it as a<br clear="none">
language as a whole.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
The reason I'm answering to your suggestion negatively isn't that I<br clear="none">
don't want Erlang to succeed, it's that I do not believe that changing<br clear="none">
the meaning of 'OTP' from 'Open Telecom Platform' to 'Open Technology<br clear="none">
Platform' will have a noticeable impact.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
Some people do ask the question 'but I don't want to do telecoms', but<br clear="none">
in my experience, people's issues are the following, to a much higher<br clear="none">
degree:<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
- The syntax is unfamiliar (or ugly)<br clear="none">
- It's difficult to work with single assignment, recursion, immutable<br clear="none">
algorithms (most of your algorithm books that rely on arrays with O(1)<br clear="none">
access to work fine are no longer going to be trivial to translate!<br clear="none">
That's huge!)<br clear="none">
- The tooling (rebar, relx, etc.) isn't up to par with other languages,<br clear="none">
even if it keeps getting better.<br clear="none">
- Lack of IDEs (that was your prime concern when you joined these lists)<br clear="none">
- Fighting the idea that "it will be hard to hire Erlang developers" to<br clear="none">
make it enter and stay in the enterprise.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
All of those criticism, in the years I've been in the Erlang community,<br clear="none">
have come up time and time again. They've also have come up orders of<br clear="none">
magnitude more often than OTP as a name, even if it does come up from<br clear="none">
time to time.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
I'm sorry I came up as harsh. I do want better adoption for Erlang and<br clear="none">
took months if not years of my free time working that way. I do not<br clear="none">
think renaming OTP is worth the effort, but I'll be glad to be proven<br clear="none">
wrong through bigger adoption if someone steps up and decides to do it.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
Now if you please, I'll go back to spending my lunch time working on an<br clear="none">
post-scripted chapter to the LYSE site introducing maps to people.<br clear="none">
<br clear="none">
Regards,<br clear="none">
Fred.<br clear="none">
</blockquote></div><br clear="none"></div></div></div></div><br><div class="yqt6092334291" id="yqtfd76677">_______________________________________________<br clear="none">erlang-questions mailing list<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" ymailto="mailto:erlang-questions@erlang.org" href="mailto:erlang-questions@erlang.org">erlang-questions@erlang.org</a><br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="http://erlang.org/mailman/listinfo/erlang-questions" target="_blank">http://erlang.org/mailman/listinfo/erlang-questions</a><br clear="none"></div><br><br></div> </blockquote> </div> </div> </div> </div></body></html>