[erlang-questions] cost of integrating 3rd party SW

[Steve Vinoski]

On 5/24/08, Per Melin <per.melin@REDACTED> wrote:
> 2008/5/24 Ulf Wiger <ulf@REDACTED>:
>
> > It's something that pops up every once in a while,
>  > e.g. in the Facebook chat server article: that combining
>  > Erlang with components written in other languages is
>  > hard.
>
>
> As a consultant I see a lot of components built in-house at different
>  companies in different languages that use RDBMSs to interface with
>  each other and COTSs. Often it's the completely wrong tool for the
>  job, but it's used because it's easy. It doesn't matter if you mix
>  Java, C++, Ruby, Python, PHP, C# and Perl; they usually (always?) have
>  drivers/APIs to talk to the major RDBMSs, and you can assume that they
>  are well used and therefor (probably) stable.
>
>  When I read or hear someone talk about using Erlang as part of a
>  larger system the state of the RDBMS drivers usually comes into
>  question.

Hi Ulf, I agree with Per -- databases seem to be a weak link. I have
an application where I had to front the database with a bridge written
in a different language and then integrate my Erlang app with that
through the network.

Other than that, I've had great success with network-based
integrations over various protocols.

--steve