[RaiO]

Is there anything like this that specifically addresses reliability in a critical (but not "safety-critical") system?

[jacquesm]

Yes, Armstrong's thesis is a very good starting point:

http://erlang.org/download/armstrong_thesis_2003.pdf

[amk_]

The techniques in the conclusions and appendix starting about page 200 are useful in any language

[jacquesm]

Yes. This goes far beyond Erlang.

[RaiO]

Looks great, thanks!

[macintux]

An interesting paper that effectively describes the hardware equivalent to Erlang is Jim Gray's "Why Do Computers Stop and What Can Be Done About It?"

http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/tandem/TR-85.7.pdf