[erlang-questions] Why does Erlang have control structures?

[dmitry kolesnikov]

Hello,

Did I missed something but given Scala constructions has equivalents
in Erlang? See below

Regards,
Dmitry

On 29.8.2012, at 2.36, Toby Thain <toby@REDACTED> wrote:

> On 28/08/12 7:04 PM, Volodymyr Kyrychenko wrote:
>> Jayson Barley wrote:
>>> I am not sure I understand why we have them. For instance I can take the
>>> following code
>>>
>>> is_greater_than(X, Y) ->
>>>     if
>>>         X>Y ->
>>>             true;
>>>         true ->  % works as an 'else' branch
>>>             false
>>>     end.
>>>
>>> And make it
>>>
>>> is_true(true) ->
>>>     true;
>>> is_true(false) ->
>>>     false.
>>>
>>> is_greater_than(X, Y) ->
>>>     is_true(X>Y).
>>
>> Because erlang has no call-by-name/need.
>>
>> What you're proposing exists in Smalltalk.
>>
>> x ifTrue: [ code ]
>
> This lazy block passing also exists in Scala, which enables various forms of ad-hoc control structures like:
>
>  spawn {
>    // code block to run in another thread
>  }
>
In Erlang
spawn(
   fun()->
      // code block to run
   end
)


> or
>
>  val f = future { /* some computation wanted later */ }
>
F = fun() ->
  // some computation
end


> Other Scala features of interest to Erlangers are immutable bindings, pattern matching, and of course actors.
>
> --Toby
>
>>
>> In erlang for this to work it should be like:
>>
>> if_(X>Y, fun() ->  do something end, fun() ->
>> this_is_else_for_something_to_return_if_not end).
>>
>> For this to work without having to wrap everything into funs there
>> should be lazy evaluation order in the language.
>>
>>
>>
>>
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