

Electronic Arts is using Erlang - old_sound
https://github.com/Eonblast/Emysql

======
KevinMS
Inspires confidence in a language when drivers for a major database are side
projects released on github?

This is one of the main reasons I just walked away from erlang, the ratio of
buzz vs its supportive environment for the real world is very high.

I remember the last time I had to connect to mysql from erlang I had to
download a few library files from some company nice enough to release them and
dump them into my projects directory.

~~~
arkitaip
This is a very real problem with many "hyped" languages. Sure, they might seem
more powerful and elegant, but if you got to spend tons of time re-
implementing basic networking/web libraries, then what's the point in using
them for web development.

~~~
wwarneck
I am a coauthor of the original emysql. I wouldn't recommend using Erlang for
your average web application. I would recommend it when the problem you're
solving thrives on an idiomatically distributed and fault tolerant platform.

------
ctide
EA is no longer using Erlang, at least none of the code related to this
project. I was engineering manager for the rupture team at the tail end of our
time at EA. Our entire backend was built using Erlang, and ufortunately the
existing MySQL drivers were less than stable, forcing us to build our own.

------
Aloisius
EA bought Shawn Fanning's company Rupture a few years ago and they used
Erlang.

~~~
trimbo
Exactly. And there has also been a position open at EA for Erlang to deal with
the inherited tech:

[http://erlang.2086793.n4.nabble.com/Open-Erlang-developer-
po...](http://erlang.2086793.n4.nabble.com/Open-Erlang-developer-position-at-
EA-td2115133.html)

That link is not working anymore, but that Erlang position was still open when
I left EA in December. So it was unfilled for a month shy of 2 years.

~~~
rubyrescue
There are a number of Erlang devs out there looking for projects - I know
because I run erlanginside.com and they often send me their CVs - so not
filling a position like that is for some other reason than that there are no
talented devs w/experience.

~~~
wwarneck
I was a hiring manager at Electronic Arts for a team that exclusively used
Erlang. It's very hard to find Erlang talent.

Many candidates have used Erlang in an exploratory capacity and have no real
experience supporting a production Erlang application under load or
troubleshooting concurrency problems in a distributed system.

That said, it was great to see a lot of passion for Erlang. I enjoy writing
it, and hope the language and community continue to evolve.

------
pmjordan
Wow, a couple of years ago it would have seemed unthinkable that a company
like EA would release some of their code as open source. Only very few major
game companies released code back then (I can think of only id and Insomniac).

~~~
teamonkey
They opened up EASTL a while back too.

[http://www.open-
std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2007/n227...](http://www.open-
std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2007/n2271.html)

<https://github.com/paulhodge/EASTL>

~~~
maximilianburke
That's not all of EASTL, unfortunately. Much of it is still behind closed
doors.

