Some claims about Erlang (was Re: Erlang use in Italy)

[Ulf Wiger]

Den 2005-04-11 17:08:09 skrev Corrado Santoro <csanto@REDACTED>:

> "Programming in Erlang requires much effort, since you must deal with  
> process calculi." (a reviewer of a paper of mine)

Hehe - a virtual hands-up, all of you on the list who
use process calculi in your daily Erlang programming work.  (:

> "Who is teaching Erlang? All students take the degree learning
> C, C++ and Java. This is what companies require" (a professor
> forgetting that students should learn *how to program*, not
> *how to program with a specific language*).

I recall a lecture in "Programming Parallel Systems", when
the professor started scribbling a code example on the black
board (yes, back in the old days, before the white boards).
He was interrupted by a student: "What's that?!"
"Why, it's pseudo-code", the professor said.
"We don't know pseudo-code. We only know Pascal", the
student countered. The professor was stumped - "But
I can't express this in Pascal..." but to no avail.
The teaching couldn't go on, and the rest of the class
was spent discussing the virtues of learning more than
one language.

/Uffe