[incepted]

> And actor supervision is the best way to write reliable systems.

Need some citation there, because we've been writing extremely reliable systems (multiple nines) for decades in various languages (mostly C, C++ and Java).

All these languages (including Erlang) come with pros and cons to write such systems, but so far, Erlang has failed to deliver on most of the promises that its advocates repeatedly make.

[dang]

Please don't do programming language flamewars on HN. By that I mean please don't make sweeping statements that are inflammatory and contain no actual information.

[daveguy]

> but so far, Erlang has failed to deliver on most of the promises that its advocates repeatedly make.

Speaking of citations...

[incepted]

Well, Erlang is a niche programming language, isn't that evidence enough that all these claims that Erlang will save us from the multithreaded hell are vastly overblown?

We're doing multithreaded programming just fine in a lot of very varied languages.

[BuckRogers]

Facebook, Whatsapp, almost every phone call you make for decades, and much of the backend for League of Legends were all built on Erlang.

Not that the others are unsuccessful from an engineering or financial standpoint, but the last one, Riot Games' League of Legends recently hit 1 billion in revenue. It's a fact that it's the most popular video game on Earth today.

If it didn't work or "failed to deliver on its promises"- none of these world-class, top-tier services would be where they are. To repeat myself so it sinks in. Yes. It is a fact that every phone call you make hits Erlang code somewhere.

Because people actually stand in the face of Erlang and spout this nonsense to this day... I'll take the claim one step further and will back it up if challenged as if it's not already self-evident.

Erlang has proven itself better, for a longer period of time than Java. Many have tried to replace Java. No one, and I mean no one has tried nor has anyone succeeded in replacing Erlang.

Only C rivals it for carrying the world on its shoulders.

[DasIch]

Erlang was developed for developing telecommunication systems and is still used heavily in that area today. When was the last time you heard of someone unable to make a phone call because a phone network went down?

[incepted]

That would be a powerful argument if you could prove the code path enabling this uses Erlang.

According to Wikipedia, shortly after Armstrong was let go of Ericsson, the company quickly ripped out Erlang from all its products and replaced it with C and C++.

[DasIch]

That's not what Wikipedia says at all.

> In 1998 Ericsson announced the AXD301 switch, containing over a million lines of Erlang[...].[8] Shortly thereafter, Ericsson Radio Systems banned the in-house use of Erlang for new products, citing a preference for non-proprietary languages. The ban caused Armstrong and others to leave Ericsson.[9] The implementation was open-sourced at the end of the year.[5] Ericsson eventually lifted the ban; it re-hired Armstrong in 2004.[9][...]

> Erlang has now been adopted by companies worldwide, including Nortel and T-Mobile. Erlang is used in Ericsson’s support nodes, and in GPRS, 3G and LTE mobile networks worldwide.[10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlang_%28programming_language...

[lostcolony]

Not to mention

"In 1998 Ericsson announced the AXD301 switch, containing over a million lines of Erlang and reported to achieve a high availability of nine "9"s"

That was the first commercial use of the language. The first commercial use of a 'niche' language, with over a million lines of code, achieved a downtime of just over half a second over 20 years. That's total downtime, too, not just 'unplanned'. And even if you take into account the numbers touted by critics of that quote, of 5 nines...that's still considered world class. For the first damn commercial product.

That's delivering.

[im_down_w_otp]

You literally have no idea what you're talking about, said the guy who knows several people on the current OTP team at Ericsson.

[rdtsc]

> Erlang has failed to deliver on most of the promises that its advocates repeatedly make.

Need some citation there,

[atemerev]

I am sorry for you being so downvoted, since your comment is legitimate. Indeed, Erlang is a niche language.

Nonetheless, it powers WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, with their billions of users. Quite a proof, I'd say.