[erlang-questions] Erlang Syntax and "Patterns" (Again)

[Garry Hodgson]

On 3/16/16 11:28 PM, Richard A. O'Keefe wrote:
> I sometimes think you don't appreciate Erlang until you've struggled 
> with concurrency
> yourself.  Last week I was working on some notes for a course I'm 
> teaching next
> semester, and needed a concurrent component with a certain interface.  
> I struggled
> for two *days* trying to make it work.  I learned more GDB commands 
> than I ever
> wished to learn.  Eventually I got there.  To make sure I wasn't 
> crazy, along the
> way I implemented in Erlang: 24 line module, 10 line core, first thing 
> I thought of
> worked, and it was *obviously* right.  I keep on having this kind of 
> experience.
I can relate. While some of our core components are in Erlang, we use 
Java (shudder)
and Python in other parts. Among those other parts are api proxies that 
translate
between our standard api's and vendor-specific ones for various security 
appliances.
Building those proxies in Python is a joy. They're easy, simple, succinct.

Until you need concurrency, and scale. The threading and multiprocessing 
modules
are simple, but you find yourself doing klunky things to solve basic 
problems, and
even when it works you worry about what isn't being handled that will 
bite you when
things get dodgy. I have confidence that our Erlang code will handle Bad 
Things with
grace. Our Python code? Probably/maybe/hope for the best.