Adrian K
Independent iPhone and Android Software Developer, Entrepreneur and Information Architect - Invite me: invite@akosma.com
Will Erlang be the "next big thing" in 2008?
Amazon has just published their new SimpleDB service... which was apparently built using Erlang (http://www.satine.org/archives/2007/12/13/amazon-simpledb/). I see Erlang appearing more and more in news, blog posts and even LinkedIn Answers (try a search on Erlang in the search field above, and you will be surprised).
I am interested in your opinion: what do you think? Will Erlang be the "next big thing", 2008's "hot" technology, the "new Ruby"? What other examples do you know about Erlang in real-life applications? And finally, have you used it or plan to use it in a project of yours? Thanks in advance for your opinion.
Good Answers (1)
Andreas H
Software developer at TietoEnator and Owner, VB Directives
Best Answers in: Software Development (1), Web Development (1)
No, I do not believe Erlang will not be big or mainstream in 2008.
I believe that the semantics of light weight processes, not threads, and message passing will rub of to other languages.
Why you should choose Erlang in your next project:
* Erlang works today
* The semantics of Erlang makes it natural to break down your solution into independent running parts, which is a must for SMP.
* Intended for distributed applications
* Runs on Linux/Unix and windows
* It is open source and free
Erlang offers an interesting combination of trade-offs.
We could look at the company Mochi Media's MochiAds product. Which is interesting example that, I believe, demonstrates that given a good idea, you can make money using Erlang as a platform.
To sum it up, Erlang will not become big and/or mainstream. Applied within the right domain, Erlang could today offer you an competitive advantage.
I believe Erlang in combination with Amazon clouds is a good choice for start ups. You will find it ease the transitions from idea to prototype to product.
More Answers (8)
Bennet B
Unified Communications Practice Leader, Solutions Marketing & Development at Avnet
NO! Erlang traffic theory has been used in traditional telephony for something like 75-years. It is basic and core, used to determine the amount of traffic which can pass through a given number of lines (or as in VoIP, the number of channels or connections). Perhaps something old being rediscovered. You can find several web sites to help you calculate them. As VoIP become more common Erlang tables with again become relevant again. Tecnically, it is akin to a slide-rule.
Vitaly K
Founder & Chief Technology Wizard @ Astrails Ltd. (http://astrails.com)
Best Answers in: Web Development (2), Business Development (1)
This is not about traffic theories, this is about programing language :)
And yes, it has the potential to become a big thing. Not sure is in 2008 or later.
Especially now that pragmatic book is out more people are exposed to the ideas. And the ideas are very very good.
Erlang is a functional language with a built-in support for massive parallel computing. It can run about a million processes on a good laptop and it creates them on a rate of about 300K/second. (Erlang 'process' is not a sytem process, but a internal lightweight one. its kind of a 'thread' but w/o memory sharing)
It is also very good at writing fault tolerant systems. There are Erlang systems running with nine-nines uptime (99.9999999%).
As I heard, Amazon's SQS and SimpleDB services are written in Erlang.
I certainly will keep an eye on the developments and will most probably use it for some project in the future.
Links:
Phillip R
Freelance developer / IT consultant specializing in helping growing SMBs leverage technology for success
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I don't know if it will "the next big thing" or not, but I expect to see it's use grow. Since the Pragmatic Press guys got on the bandwagon it's been gaining steam and picking up some buzz. For example, ere in the Raleigh area we have an active Erlang user's group now, which didn't exist a year or two ago.
Do I plan to use it? I don't have specific plans yet, but I'm working on learning it and I have a strong hunch I will find it useful in the not too distant future.
I don't think so, like other new languages it will be boosted for being the "employee of the month" being used in several applications but none of them really attracting more development and researching.
What is good of Erlang (according to what I've heard)?
-It's fast
-It's totally based on concurrency and threads, other languages only help to handle this but they are not really orientated to high performance work on this.
What is bad? (what I've tested)
- The code is too criptic
- At least with ejabberd the errors like to be only for developers of erlang because they are not easy to read.
Could be useful? Yes surely, but only on very specific niches of market (handle large amount of data/requests)
I think in this time were we need to code applications more faster and bug-free; we should focus on more easier development tools.
Geoffrey W
Software Consultant
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I don't think so, personally. I agree with Phillip, you'll see its use grow somewhat, but I don't think Erlang has what it takes to break through. Parts of what it does will be influential to other languages, and it will be more popular than it is, but it will never be one of the top three languages.
Fred G
Independent Code Contributor at the Android Project-OpenHandsetAlliance
Best Answers in: Software Development (2), Internet Marketing (1), Starting Up (1), Wireless (1)
I think you are already seeing some effects on other languages..ie see the isolate jsr for java.
The problem of course is Erlang is very cryptic compared to other languages. Although performance wise it does help Ericsson, its creator :)
Paul O
Software Consultant, People and Process Engineer, Lean, Agile and RUP at Capgemini
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I've experienced 20 years' worth of 'next big thing' tips.
The only one that got as big as expected was Java. Without exception, none of them got big as soon as expected.
Contra-indications: 1. there's no BIG company behind Erlang; Sun, Microsoft or Oracle have ready 'in's to help make their ideas catch on big. It's not a necessity; Linux and before that Unix took off from the student community. 2. there's no big new idea. 3. The old ideas haven't fared exceptionally well in the past. Again it's not a necessity; some ideas have been around for a long time then suddenly take off.
And a note of caution - as I don't consider Ruby to be a particularly 'big' thing, maybe my comments need some re-calibration to your standards.
Clarification added December 18, 2007:
I should add - I was working with a functional language that supported massively parallel computing in 1987. It was called Hope. Have you ever heard of it? Maybe so, but if so you're the exception that proves the rule :)
Joshua F
Experienced Software Engineer, Network Engineer, and System Administrator
I thought it already was the "next big thing" ? ;-)
Seriously though, I think Erlang and languages / libraries that use it's concurrency primitives (ala Cangygram via Python) will become more commonplace as concurrency programming becomes more of a need rather than a want.
Will it be the next Ruby? Doubtful. Erlang is better defined as a programming paradigm rather than a programming language itself. Still, the major impact of Ruby was Rails and it's popularization of DRY MVC web frameworks; Erlang may do the same thing for concurrency programming.
Clarification added December 20, 2007:
In regards to the comment about HOPE, parallel programming wasn't saturating the desktop in 87. It is now. That's what makes the difference.
