Erlang documentation

#!/usr/bin/entropy --why-me davidws@REDACTED
Fri Jul 9 16:26:41 CEST 1999


Hello,

	I am very new to Erlang. I come from the C/C++/Python/Perl world
of Linux and I am new to functional programming as well.

I found the whitepapers on Erlang astounding as well as the ease at which
you can do distributed programming.

However, I have a problem with the tutorial. I think the main reason why
Python was able to catch on was the documentation set was so complete.

My complaint with the Erlang online docs is that they ramp up the
complexity too fast from the trivial examples to the hard ones.
Here is a suggested format:

File IO
	All basic file operations, opening closing, seeking ect.
	* Examples in C
	* Examples that do the same in erlang

String Manipulation:
	Starting with simple pattern matching to regualre expressions
	* Examples in Perl/Python
	* Examples that do the same in erlang

Program control flow:
	Looping and testing examples in erlang compared to C

Basic syntax structures:
	How to construct a function (I had to hack until I releasized that
I needed a pieriod at the end of the last statement to return a value from
a function)

Extending and Embedding guide:
	I think this is what made Python and Perl really popular; wrapping
	lagacy code.
	Again there should be real world exhaustive examples.

With this out of the way then the introduction of functional programming
and/or logical programming should be introduced.

Then dstributed programming.


Again, I enjoy what I see thus far in Erlang. Thank you for your time
and hard work.

David Schere








More information about the erlang-questions mailing list