Erlang's not about lightweight processes and message passing

7 days ago

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Erlang's key innovation is not just lightweight processes and message passing, but its generic components called 'behaviours'.
Behaviours in Erlang are like interfaces in other languages, providing a structured way to build reliable distributed systems.
Erlang was developed at Ericsson for telephone switches, handling internet-scale traffic before the internet was widespread.
After being banned at Ericsson in 1998, Erlang was open-sourced, leading to its broader adoption.
Joe Armstrong, one of Erlang's creators, emphasized the importance of behaviours in his PhD thesis.
Behaviours like gen_server, gen_event, gen_fsm, supervisor, application, and release provide a framework for building robust systems.
Supervisors in Erlang manage process health, restarting failed processes according to predefined strategies.
The 'let it crash' philosophy promotes reliability by allowing processes to fail fast and be restarted by supervisors.
Erlang's behaviours enable sequential code for business logic while handling concurrency and distribution transparently.
Simulation testing and formal verification are easier with the structured approach provided by behaviours.

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