[erlang-questions] Erlang Extension Proposals (EEPs)

Thomas Lindgren thomasl_erlang@REDACTED
Wed Jan 31 16:06:05 CET 2007


--- Tom Samplonius <tom@REDACTED> wrote:

> 
> ----- "Thomas Lindgren" <thomasl_erlang@REDACTED>
> wrote:
> > Erlang: a popular programming language
> > OTP: an Ericsson organization
> > Erlang/OTP: the OTP implementation of Erlang (and
> > more)
> 
>   But OTP is also a bunch of libraries that are
> useful, not just an organization.  I see that the
> general impression is that the OTP code is complex,
> but it does do something useful.

That "OTP" would be "Erlang/OTP" in the terminology
above.

>   Given how fractionalized that LISP has become
> because each implementation has libraries that
> perform the same function, but just work different
> (ex. sockets do not work the same way), leading to
> wrapper libraries that try to provide a generic
> interface that works anywhere.  It is a real mess,
> marginalizing LISP to a prototyping language (ex.
> http://reddit.com/ was re-written in Python from CMU
> Lisp, because it was unstable, and sockets and
> threads don't work the same way in all LISPs).

(Perhaps the authors of Reddit simply were more
comfortable with a scripting language like Python, and
switched when they ran into problems? It didn't sound
like it was a huge effort to port the application to a
whole new _language_, after all.)

Ironically, Common Lisp is FAR MORE standardized than
Erlang. The problems of porting, e.g., Common Lisp do
not appear in Erlang only because with Erlang there is
nowhere to port. If there was a second source for
Erlang, I would hands down expect future functionality
to diverge, and probably the existing libraries too
(as bug fixes are introduced, for example).

Anyway, the issue of whether to require 100%
compatibility with Erlang/OTP (later in your mail) is
moot, since, as Kenneth has told us, EEPs are intended
precisely for Erlang/OTP.

Best,
Thomas



 
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