Starting Erlang

[Per Bergqvist]

>                                                                     
> >> Please please please make .ear be a standard (e.g. POSIX) archive
> >> format, usable by standard tools (e.g. tar/cpio/pax).            
> >> The world doesn't need Yet Another Pointless Archive Format(TM). 
> >>                                                                  
> >> /Mikael                                                          
> >                                                                   
> >  Ummm - It's not clear to me the advantages of following a        
standard                                                              
> >format outweigh the advantages of using a non-standard format....  
> >                                                                   
> >  Since I expect an Erlang program to produce the YAPAF file and   
> >another Erlang program to consume the YAPAF I don't see why it     
matters                                                               
> >what the format is. A symmetric pair of term_to_binary and         
> >binary_to_term calls is all that is needed - not exactly complex   
code.                                                                 
>                                                                     
> If there is any interest, I have not one but two .ear formats with  
> encoder/decoders :-) Yes, they are YAPAFs, but straightforward      
ones.(On the                                                          
> bright side, I have archived and installed the entire OTP .beam     
collection                                                            
> with both. On Solaris and Linux.)                                   
>                                                                     
> The main advantage of doing it in Erlang is portability, hence      
availability.                                                         
> (This doesn't argue for a YAPAF, of course, since we could implement
some                                                                  
> well-known format in Erlang.) We can use the same code on Windows   
and                                                                   
> VxWorks as on various Unices. (Using a YAPAF, we also get the       
double-edged                                                          
> sword of flexibility :-)                                            
>                                                                     
> -- Thomas                                                           
>                                                                     
As we discussed before Thomas, I think that support for other         
resources than .beam files should be supported (i.e. loadable drivers 
but make it generic). Support for different architectures in parallell
should be included.                                                   
Next had this with its fat binaries.                                  
(It also had utilities to slim the binaries ;-)                       
                                                                      
BTW, Lack of support for other files is than .beam files is what makes
the network bootloader useless.                                       
                                                                      
/PER                                                                  
                                                                      
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Per Bergqvist                                                         
Synapse Systems AB                                                    
Phone: +46 709 686 685                                                
Email: per@REDACTED