The ability to utilize the BEAM's fully pre-emptive processes makes it great for programming hardware tasks and higher level tasks in the same environment. Compared to other languages like Lua, Node, Python, or even Go which all use various forms of cooperative multi-tasking or async-io. In these systems you have to be careful not to block other critical tasks. That's a pain but not the end of the world.
However, for me the best feature is that I can remotely log into a running BEAM VM and interactively explore the live system [1]. Since Erlang has been used in "embedded" type systems for a long time there are a lot of useful libraries. For example a tiny bit of wrapper code let me setup a secure remote Elixir REPL using standard SSH keys for our embedded devices [2]. You can also run entire "applications" much as you would a system service, but which you can communicate with natively in Elixir/Erlang. Also the support for running sub-processes as ports is really nice.
In general it's really more like a live operating system which you can program and investigate. The primary thing lacking is a capabilities system to allow running non-privileged code in a sand-boxed manner.
However, for me the best feature is that I can remotely log into a running BEAM VM and interactively explore the live system [1]. Since Erlang has been used in "embedded" type systems for a long time there are a lot of useful libraries. For example a tiny bit of wrapper code let me setup a secure remote Elixir REPL using standard SSH keys for our embedded devices [2]. You can also run entire "applications" much as you would a system service, but which you can communicate with natively in Elixir/Erlang. Also the support for running sub-processes as ports is really nice.
In general it's really more like a live operating system which you can program and investigate. The primary thing lacking is a capabilities system to allow running non-privileged code in a sand-boxed manner.
1: https://tkowal.wordpress.com/2016/04/23/observer-in-erlangel... 2: https://github.com/elcritch/iex_ssh_shell