[the_only_law]

> the 'number crunching' bits are offloaded to specialist languages because the underlying language model that Erlang uses does not lend itself for the kind of optimization that JS, Go, PHP etc have available to them simply because their runtime model is so completely different.

Yeah I love Erlang, but often reach for something else when I need to be able to express and optimize compute bound problems.

[jacquesm]

In a way it makes perfect sense. When I look into my toolbox I see a whole pile of different saws, each of which has a specific usecase, metal, wood, living wood, trees, joinery, figure work, glass+ etc. The one-tool-to-fit-all-usecases programming language hasn't been invented yet as far as I can see.

+ technically, probably more of a grinder because the blade is covered with diamond dust, but you use it like a saw.

[MrWiffles]

> The one-tool-to-fit-all-usecases programming language hasn't been invented yet as far as I can see.

Well, just like you can use a screwdriver to pound a nail into the wall (flip it handle-first), you could use C or Rust or Go or Java or...nearly anything to build...nearly anything if you really _forced_ it hard enough, had infinite time, expert labor and budget, but...

...there are better tools for the job of pounding a nail into the wall than a screwdriver! ;-)

In other words, I totally agree with you. Sure, you could build, oh I dunno, say a compute-intensive application entirely in, say, Ruby, but you'd need to throw some ungodly expensive hardware at it. Makes a lot more sense to use the right tool for the job!