

Ask HN: Why is Erlang so unpopular? - mannicken

It seems like internet is filled with articles about Python and Ruby on Rails and .NET and LINQ and all that stuff.<p>Why don't people post more info on Erlang?
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evgen
Given how popular Erlang was three or four years ago I think that its current
popularity is quite stunning. Back then the learning curve was quite a bit
steeper since we lacked Joe's book, lots of interesting and informative blog
posts, and the current variety of modules and systems to examine and play
with.

Info about Python, Rails, .NET/LINQ, and even Java is the sort of stuff that
helps a large portion of the programming community get things done in their
daily tasks. For most people languages like Erlang, Haskell, Clojure, and Lisp
are interesting diversions that they might one day aspire to be able to get
paid for, what info that is out there is mostly provided to share the joy of
the language and the problems it can solve rather than trying to keep you from
going postal at your day job.

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zdmc23
I think that more people don't commit to Erlang because they're afraid that
it's just "the cool thing" - for now. It seems like more and more people are
becoming aware of the importance of learning at least one functional
programming language, but perhaps aren't sure which to commit to. I personally
was a bit torn: Erlang has some great features and is production tested,
Clojure is Lisp-esque (kill two birds with one stone) and has access to the
Java libraries, OCaml is blazing fast, Haskell seems to be the pick for the
"eggheads" and has lazy evaluation (purists seem to gloat over this one),
etc... I think it comes down to risk...

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kirubakaran
Why is chocolate more popular than brown rice?

~~~
whughes
On the contrary, brown rice is more popular than chocolate. Consider that most
of the world's population survives primarily on rice with some other protein
sources and water.

~~~
Xichekolas
Yet in regards to chocolate's sugar and instant gratification versus rice's
underlying substance and scalability, I think kirubakaran's analogy was subtly
accurate.

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jganetsk
People don't post more info on Erlang because people don't use Erlang as much.

.NET, Python, and RoR have much wider use.

The better question is, why don't people use Erlang?

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evgen
People do, but most problems can still be solved just as easily by the
standard set of programmer tools. Most desktop apps don't need to scale across
multiple processors (yet) and most web services can get by without needing
serious scaling muscle. Some of this is starting to change, which is why
languages like Erlang are being noticed and talked about (and even used) at
the bleeding-edge. Revisit this question in four or five years and the
question will probably be more along the lines of "why are people still using
<insert current popular language here>?"

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bcneige
Doesn't seem too unpopular right now.

