Stuff Goes Bad: Erlang in Anger

by massung • 11 years ago

146 21 11 years ago

rdtsc• 11 years ago

This is the Missing Advanced Manual. Another great work by Fred Hebert, the author of http://learnyousomeerlang.com .

I like the exercises at end of chapters. Most of it is Erlang specific. But some chapters like "Planning For Overload" are interesting in general if you are running distributed system at scale.

ProfOak_• 11 years ago

Looks like a really nice book, but I don't know a thing about Erlang.

jacquesm8• 11 years ago

Then maybe it's time to expand your horizon a bit, he also has another book about Erlang that's a bit more beginner level: http://learnyousomeerlang.com/ , I promise you that if you stick to it for a couple of weeks that you will not regret investing your time even if you never use Erlang professionally. Some of the philosophy behind it and the methodical way of attacking a problem will rub off and will make you a better programmer in the longer term.

jacquesm8• 11 years ago

Erlang has the steepest learning curve of any programming language I've ever studied and Frank Hebert does an excellent job of grading that curve to the point where mere mortals can walk upwards. I'm tremendously grateful for all the work he's put into his books if you're going to spend time on Erlang start with 'Learn you some Erlang' and work your way into the libraries from there.

therockhead• 11 years ago

Do you mean the overall platform (OTP etc) ? While different, the Erlang language is small and much simpler than most programming languages IMHO.

jacquesm8• 11 years ago

OTP makes good sense to me because I built something along the same lines (in C, blasphemy) two years ago.

Erlang the language has me tearing my hair out on occasion. That's not Erlangs fault, it's clearly mine, I grew up with 'BASIC' and moved on Assembler and from there to 'C' and a whole bunch of other imperative languages besides so functional languages are always harder for me to learn.

That said I'm making good progress and Freds book was instrumental in that.

kristoffer3• 11 years ago

I hate the misuse of the term "steep learning curve". If something has a steep learning curve it actually means you are learning it fast.

jacquesm8• 11 years ago

If you're a driver then you know that steep curves are taken slowly. (Unless you're going downhill, and in that case it's probably a sign that your brakes have failed...)

axiomabsolute• 11 years ago

Doesn't this presume the x axis is time. What if the x axis is progress towards completion and the y axis is effort?

jrlocke• 11 years ago

I believe you mean Fred Hebert.

jacquesm8• 11 years ago

Too late to edit, you're absolutely right.

tel• 11 years ago

This should be required reading for anyone building systems in which subcomponents can fail independently, Erlang or otherwise! The techniques are not always implementable in other languages, but the concepts behind them can and should be translated.

Stuff Goes Bad: Erlang in Anger

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