[erlang-questions] Releasing wxerlang applications

[CGS]

Hi,

I am no expert in Erlang, but I think I may have few answers for you.

"The thing that I don't seem to be able to wrap my head around is that you
start and stop OTP applications like you would start and stop server
daemons, not client applications."

There is no big difference in between a daemon and a client application. A
daemon is just a script which installed in a certain path and is started at
a certain stage of the Linux boot (for example). The same script put in
another folder can start the application at user level (after the linux
booted and users privileges come into play). Now, depending on how you
would prefer to have start/stop strategy, you can do it by brutal kill
(sending kill signal to your OS for that process) of your application or by
sending signal to your application to stop itself. But this is something
different from starting your application as daemon or user application.

"So, does it make sense to fold-in OTP into graphical client applications?"

It depends more on your client application than the graphical part. By
default, Erlang knows nothing about graphics and graphical decorations, but
it can talk with C via NIF's. For example, if you have to set a
communication in between client and server and you don't want to make it in
C/C++/JAVA (depending on the language you use to develop your client
application), then Erlang can be a nice choice. If you want a hotswap for
your application (code change without restarting the application), then OTP
is providing a very nice tool for that. There are other advantage and
disadvantages adding Erlang code to your application, but, mainly,
everything depends on what you expect from application functionality.

I hope this answer will help you in deciding your strategy for your project.

CGS




On Sat, Apr 28, 2012 at 3:19 PM, Red Davies <noiddicle@REDACTED> wrote:

> Please forgive me if this question has an obvious answer.  I'm still in
> the "what's the right syntax for a guard again?" stage of learning the
> language.
>
> So I want to write a simple wxerlang application.  I want to use OTP
> functionality such as supervisors.
>
> The thing that I don't seem to be able to wrap my head around is that you
> start and stop OTP applications like you would start and stop server
> daemons, not client applications.
>
> So, does it make sense to fold-in OTP into graphical client applications?
>
> If so, any pointers as to how or references for where it's been done
> before.
>
> Thanks
>
> Red
>
> _______________________________________________
> erlang-questions mailing list
> erlang-questions@REDACTED
> http://erlang.org/mailman/listinfo/erlang-questions
>
>
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