[erlang-questions] "Erlang as a First Language" -- crazy? or just stupid?

[Thomas Lindgren]

----- Original Message ----
> (2) Don't underestimate how hostile some of these people can be to the
> idea of programming at all.  One researcher I'm corresponding with
> recently wrote me that he'd rather peel his skin off than write code. 

Clearly, you will need to get them started and productive pretty quickly. I find the erlang shell reasonably friendly to experimentation, casual testing and bottom-up development, which can be helpful. Show them how to use the shell, invoke functions, print answers, figure out what exceptions mean, etc, and it serves more like a calculator than a programming language. 

Unfortunately, the shell has its many limitations, so you'll then have to show them modules and compilation to really get going. Unless they are comfortable with unix and programming, I'd avoid include-files and unix make files as far as possible so that they can stay with just the shell a bit longer.

> ... IBM AS/400 ...

(I've never seen or used as AS/400 but I _have_ paid cold hard cash for Soltis, "Inside the AS/400". I blame an unhealthy interest in computer architecture :-)

Best,
Thomas