Monday, May 4, 2009

Erlang Factory: A Retrospective

I recently presented on Reia at Erlang Factory in San Francisco. It was a lot of fun, both attending and presenting. Videos of my talk, and the many others I heard people raving about over IRC and Twitter are forthcoming but will hopefully be available soon. There are certainly many I intend to check out.

The conference certainly exceeded my expectations. I thought I might be something of an outsider in the community, but I was surprised to see a number of Ruby people in the community, which I found pretty interesting. Ezra's talk on Nanite touched on an important point: there's not a lot of crossover in what Ruby and Erlang do well, and for that reason they're relatively compilentary languages. I ended up pitching Reia as what I hoped to be a best-of-both-worlds solution.

There was certainly ample talk about CouchDB, which got me thinking about using Reia as a language for CouchDB views. CouchDB creator Damien Katz gave a pretty cool talk as well, not so much about code as about the personal circumstances which brought him to create CouchDB.

The Powerset guys talk on Katamari, the evolution of Fuzed, was pretty cool to catch as well. I've certainly run into the issue of needing an intelligent proxy in front of a bunch of slow web services, which so far HAProxy has managed to solve, but if I need a more intelligent frontend to the services of our application Katamari is something I certainly intend to check out, at least as soon as it's open sourced.

It was pretty cool to check out Nitrogen as well, which managed to do some pretty impressive and Erlangy things with web services. It's also the best usage of Erlang's record syntax I've ever seen. The demo involved pushing the presently active slide to all the people viewing the demo in their web browser, which I've seen done in Ruby before but I suspect the Erlang version is far less hackish :)

Twitter seemed to be haunting me throughout the conference. I hacked together a script which posted Twitter updates with the #erlangfactory tag to the #erlangfactory channel on freenode. Twitter helped me link up with the people who found the lost AC adapter to my MacBook and also helped me figure out who's Apple remote I accidently snagged after my talk. It was really handy.

However, people also talked to me about my blog post regarding Twitter's switch to Scala, and we all talked about how simple the core problem Twitter is trying to solve actually is and how easily it could be (and has been) implemented in Erlang. The Twitter people did their "due diligence" and decided that Scala was best suited to their needs. Whatever guys, I think Erlang could've help you out considerably. I recall a post on a site like HighScalability (although I can't find it) where Twitter said they evaluated Erlang circa 2007 and the lone developer pitching it couldn't get his prototype to work, and so I guess Erlang isn't applicable there, or something? When the Scala prototype works I guess that's what they use...

The general concensus discussing the matter with various Erlangy people was that Twitter was little more than a massive pub/sub message queue which delivers messages to a backing database (from whence their RoR webapp serves their site), which isn't really that hard of a problem and the kind of problem which is almost ideally suited to Erlang. Yet the Twitter people eschewed Erlang for Scala and on a totally unrelated matter run a perpetually unstable albeit massively hyped service. Way to go, guys.

There's quite a few talks I missed which I want to talk out, particularly a talk given on Haskell. I certainly hope the videos (including mine) get posted soon.

Despite ample conversation about CouchDB there was virtually no discussion of the sort that has Ruby drama queens panties in a bunch, something about a presentation involving scantily clad girls that offended people. So awesome to be in a community that's still small enough to value code over anything else :)

All said it was a great conference and one I look forward to attending (or speaking at again) next year.

24 comments:

Harish Mallipeddi said...

What's interesting about Katamari? How's it different from HAProxy?

Jörg W Mittag said...

Do you know whether the video of your talk will be posted or did something go wrong with the recording? Most other talks have already been posted.

BTW: A funny thing just happened. A couple of months ago, I decided to finally play around with GraphViz, something I had planned to do for a long time. And since I had just read one of your announcements on ruby-talk, I threw together a quick family tree of Reia, to get me started with GraphViz. I wanted to show it to you, but I completely forgot.

And here I am, reading your slide deck, and there is my diagram! (Well, something very much like it.)

Anyway, here it is: https://Gist.GitHub.Com/117517/. I went back one step further from Smalltalk-71 to Planner, and discovered a third path: Planner not only influenced the message-driven execution of Smalltalk-71, it also is the predecessor of Prolog, which of course is a heavy influence on Erlang. Also, just today I discovered that the author of Planner is Carl Hewitt, who of course also invented the Actor Model.

Hamsite said...

و.همچنان با و کسب و کار اینترنتی و کسب و کار آنلاین . اما طراحي وب سايت اختصاصي مي توان با طراحي سايت سازماني ، طراحي پرتال سازماني که اين همان طراحي سايت کارخانه و طراحي سايت کافي شاپ که اين يک طراحي سايت معماري و طراحي سايت دکوراسيون داخلي است.طراحي سايت خبري و طراحي وب سايت خبري و ديگر طراحي سايت خودرو و همچينين طراحي سايت دانشگاه و طراحي وب سايت دانشگاه همچنان

Unknown said...

دانلود تمامی قسمت ها سریال در حاشیه مهران مدیری
دانلود فیلم Shaitan 2011
دانلود Haunted Empire-Three Kingdoms v1.1.9 اندروید

Archana The best Call Girl said...

********************************************************************************************************
Hi friends ! I'm Archana Kumari. I like to have bed relationship with different persons rather than with a single man for the whole of life. Not only is this my notion , but also is this fact that the secret organs are made for enjoyment. Please follow me on the links given bellow.

Escorts in Bhubaneswar
Escorts in Gurgaon
Escorts in Gurgaon

Escorts in Jaipur
Escorts in Jaipur
Escorts in Jaipur

Escorts in Jaipur
Escorts in Mumbai
Escorts in Bangalore

If you are interested in me and my ideology ,then you are invited to my bed. Just go ahead !
***********************************************************************************************************

dadyar said...

click me
sepidlabkhand
sepidlabkhand
sepidlabkhand

rima said...

siliguri escorts
siliguri escort
siliguri female escorts
siliguri escort service



siliguri escorts
siliguri escort
siliguri female escorts
siliguri escort service



siliguri escorts
siliguri escort
siliguri female escorts
siliguri escort service



siliguri escorts
siliguri escort
siliguri female escorts
siliguri escort service



siliguri escorts
siliguri escort
siliguri female escorts
siliguri escort service



siliguri escorts
siliguri escort
siliguri female escorts
siliguri escort service

Ana Watson said...

Amazing blog, there was some new things I learned from the information you have provided. keep sharing such things. Also post something on Nulls Clash.

Blogger said...

Watch and download Pinoy Lambingan and lambingan shows online for free hd

الخبير لفتح الاقفال بالكويت said...


فتح قفل الباب المغلق هي مهمة صعبة ولكن يعرضون في الأفلام أن البطل يستطيع فتح الاقفال بكل سهولة ولم يخبروننا كيف يتم هذا الأمر يمكنك فتح الاقفال في ثوان معددودة حتي تلك التي تحتوي على مقبط كروي عن طريق أتباع الطرق الأتية. ستتعرفون معنا علي خمس طرق لفتح الأبواب ببعض الأدوات المساعدة ولكن يجب عليكم أستخدام تلك الطرق لفتح أوابكم التي أغلقت دون قصد أنتبهو جيداً لهذا الأمر
فتح اقفال
ابحث عن مساحة الجدار المناسبة. عندما يكون لديك لوحة صغيرة ، تتراوح مساحتها بين قدم وثلاثة أقدام مربعة ، يجب ألا تعلقها على جدار كبير فارغ بمفردها. ستجعل اللوحة تبدو أصغر حجمًا. لذا ابحث عن قسم صغير من الجدار أو اختر بعض اللوحات الأخرى لتعلقها به. علق العمل الفني على مستوى العين ، حوالي 60 بوصة.
اللوحات الصغيرة رائعة للتعليق حول اللوحات الكبيرة لتعويضها وخلق بعض التوازن. يمكنك أيضًا تعليق مجموعة من اللوحات الصغيرة بنمط.
او عليك الاستعانة بشركة الخبير شركة تركيب لوحات ارخص اسعار تركيب اللوحات

افضل شركة تركيب لوحات بالكويت تركيب جميع انواع اللوحات بارخص الاسعار
تركيب لوحات

KevinRhodes234 said...

Even though I am here for the first time, I am very impressed with your post. Thanks for sharing. Download GBWhatsapp Apk

Unknown said...

Do Assignment For Me online is a premium website that writes academically, and a student can hire a professional college essayist quickly and easily at the lowest cost.We are providing our best assignment servises in UK.

Ramma Foundation Repair said...

foundation repair Edmonton establishment fix team of experienced laborers hand-burrow all establishment and sobbing tile undertakings to guarantee greatest dependability of the fixes without the requirement for costly.

Mari said...

This Software is wonderful and has many functions. Install this software for free....
https://softhound.net/launchbox-premium/

Muqaddas said...

I found all of my PC problems here. Please go to this site. You'll be happy.
https://windowsactivators.org/internet-download-manager-crack/

Zachary said...

Hey,Like related more informative post, now visit here: Clash of Clans MOD APK

spasweety said...


Massage comes under a wellness service and therefore Nuru massage naked massage can help you get over the body aches that you have.

female to male body massage in mg road said...

firsthand experience or knowledge of reputable places offering body massage in mg road, we can provide valuable insights and suggestions, so come and take our best service for best experience

shanjanaarora said...

Friction: This technique is used to help relieve muscle tension and is done by using circular motions with your fingers and thumbs. Start massage girls in chennai at the person’s feet and gradually move up their body.

izspa.net said...

Each session has a specific focus, working massage in hyderabad towards realigning and balancing the entire body. The Ten-Series aims to create a holistic transformation that improves posture, movement, and overall well-being.

lishasingh said...

During a chest massage, an increase in blood flow occurs, rising muscle temperature. female to male massage centres near meIncreasing muscle temperature loosens muscles and allows them to stretch.

PinoyFlix | Pinoy TV Replay | Pinoy Teleserye said...

Pinoy Lambingan stands as the go-to website for Filipinos seeking access to their beloved Pinoy TV shows. The platform boasts a diverse array of captivating Pinoy TV shows that instill a sense of pride in every Filipino, celebrating their rich cultural heritage. Pinoy Flix serves as the perfect avenue to remain updated on the latest and most remarkable Pinoy Flix productions. Whether your heart leans towards comedy, drama, or action, Pinoy Tv Teleserye has something tailor-made for your tastes. So, why wait any longer? Embark on your Pinoy Teleserye journey today. Welcome to PinoyFlix, your ultimate destination for all things Pinoy TV Flix . We're more passionate and committed than ever to deliver an unparalleled viewing experience to our audience. Featuring an extensive library of Tambayan Teleserye shows, we ensure you can catch up on any episodes you might have missed, at your convenience and from anywhere, thanks to cutting-edge technology and internet streaming. Pinoy Tv Tambayan brings you TV5 and GMA 7 shows that are readily available for replay

rennasweety said...

Emotional repression is the holding on the body to body massage centres near me inside of those emotions which we do not want to show that we are feeling.

nancysweety said...

The idea is that by creating more space in female to male massage in pune the fascia, you’ll release tension and free up space inside of your body.