[erlang-questions] Erlang for youngsters

[Torben Hoffmann]

Hi Evgeny,



Evgeny M writes:

> Imo the best tutorial for a beginner in any language (for someone who has 
> experience in other ones) is something intermediate and familiar using some 
> ready framework. Some thing which allows him/her to write in a hour 
> something he used to build in other language. Often it is possible to do 
> this even without knowing the language almost altogether. Like, tutorial on 
> Django is a great way to start learning python. Something like this could 
> be created for Erlang, either over pure Cowboy, or ChicagoBoss, or 
> whatever. Just a dumb step by step (type this, run that) tutorial which can 
> be done by anyone who has any programming background. In the end there will 
> be a working site with forms, POSTs and other fancy stuff. I for one 
> learned myself both python and erlang exactly this way (using Django and 
> CB), skipping all the boring stuff.
> Doing hellowords, compiling modules, doing releases and other stuff like 
> that is really very boring. You can do it later.
>
For people with experiences in programming I think your suggestions are very valid.

> Also I'd say talking about concurrency should start with OTP, and introduce 
> spawn() later. First, OTP gen_server is just easier than standard 
> spawn/receive  for anyone with OO background. Second,  spawn/receive is too 
> similar to standard approaches to multithreading in mainstream languages 
> and it is harder to see all the benefits of Erlang supervision and workers.
>
That is probably true. OTP should fit OO people just fine.

> Erlang as a language looks very hard for two weeks, then it suddenly 
> becomes very easy (as a language, concurrency is always hard).
Good observation!
> Recursion is hard in any language without pattern matching.
Good point - I actually never thought about like that.

Cheers,
Torben
-- 
Torben Hoffmann
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