Language Bindings for Erlang Again

[Michel Urvoy]

There are two aims in the binding.
One is to give a way to use some specificity of the language: Rewrite
a part of code in "C" with a port (driver) for efficiency and except
an ASM port, there is nothing to add in this way.

The other point of view is to open Erlang to other language, because
what is to notice about Erlang? Everybody says that it's a very
attractive language, but as far as I can see, it is very few used.
This is the paradox of Erlang.
For example, there is now millions of web site, but who knows one site
written in Erlang?
And the choice of Erlang (+C) and nothing else is not very easy when
you have on the shelf a lot of code you will not be able to reuse.
Well, that's to say that all the languages that are TCP/IP able should
have an Erlang node interface. It is not as efficient as ports but it
is a clean way to open Erlang to reuse code.
For example I have already two part of code. One in C# and one in
Fortran. I wrap each of them in an Erlang node and I write an Erlang
framework that make the communication between the two nodes.
Furthermore I should be able to use the hot replacement code mechanism
on the two nodes to update the foreign code.
In such a way Erlang could behave like universal glue between
languages and seems to be well designed for that job.
And it's a way to confirm that Erlang is something different than
other language, but here everybody already knows that.
Michel.