An Introduction to Erlang

for Python programmers

Paul Barry – Institute of Technology, Carlow in Ireland

PyCon Ireland 2011 - October 2011

http://paulbarry.itcarlow.ie/ErlangWebcast.pdf

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Disclaimer

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What exactly is Erlang?

4
“Erlang is a declarative,dynamically-typed,
functional, concurrent, distributed and
fault-tolerant programming language
with garbage collection and code
hot-swapping built into its runtime.”

Buzz-word city,
dude!

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Scratching an itch in
the early '80s...

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Why learn Erlang?

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“Learn a new programming
language every year”

8
 “Buy at least one new
programming book every year”

9
So, really, why learn Erlang?

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A better programmer,
you will be...

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Learn how others solve problems with a
different language, then apply these new
techniques to your current language

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Learn what each language is good at,
then pick the right tool for the job

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Works with a really big hammer!

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What is Erlang good at?

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What Erlang Wasn't Designed To Do

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 Erlang wasn't designed to...

Run in a browser

Process text efficiently

Be easy to teach

Be easy to learn

Build dynamic websites

Run on mobile phones

Allow non-programmers to program

Build GUIs
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 Erlang was designed to build
software systems that never stop

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What exactly do you
mean by “never”?

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 “Never” at Ericsson means “no more
than 4 minutes downtime per year”...

http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Systems-that-Never-Stop-Joe-Armstrong 20
Wow! That's 5 nines
availability!*

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* 99.999% uptime
 Let's build software
that's 100% defect free!

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 Let's throw lots and lots
of code at the problem and
it'll go away, eh?

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There has to be a better way

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 Let it crash!

Erlang programmers concentrate on

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 Robustness is achieved by having
programmers concentrate on processes and the
interactions (or messages) between them

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Early error detection/recovery and the use
of concurrent programming techniques
lets you build fault tolerant systems

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COP: Concurrency-Oriented Programming

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The problem is...

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The problem is...

Erlang is a little weird

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 Consider this code...
-module(hello_server).

-export([hello/0]).

hello() ->

receive

{FromPID, Who} ->

case Who of

robert -> FromPID ! "Hello Robert.";

mike -> FromPID ! "Hello Mike.";

joe -> FromPID ! "Hello Joe.";

_ -> FromPID ! "I don't know you."

end,

hello()

end.

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 Strange punctuation symbols . ; ,
-module(hello_server).

-export([hello/0]).

hello() ->

receive

{FromPID, Who} ->

case Who of

robert -> FromPID ! "Hello Robert.";

mike -> FromPID ! "Hello Mike.";

joe -> FromPID ! "Hello Joe.";

_ -> FromPID ! "I don't know you."

end,

hello()

end.

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 Lots of arrows -> in lots of places
-module(hello_server).

-export([hello/0]).

hello() ->

receive

{FromPID, Who} ->

case Who of

robert -> FromPID ! "Hello Robert.";

mike -> FromPID ! "Hello Mike.";

joe -> FromPID ! "Hello Joe.";

_ -> FromPID ! "I don't know you."

end,

hello()

end.

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 Even stranger symbols - _ !
-module(hello_server).

-export([hello/0]).

hello() ->

receive

{FromPID, Who} ->

case Who of

robert -> FromPID ! "Hello Robert.";

mike -> FromPID ! "Hello Mike.";

joe -> FromPID ! "Hello Joe.";

_ -> FromPID ! "I don't know you."

end,

hello()

end.

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 What's the deal with [] {} and () ?
-module(hello_server).

-export([hello/0]).

hello() ->

receive

{FromPID, Who} ->

case Who of

robert -> FromPID ! "Hello Robert.";

mike -> FromPID ! "Hello Mike.";

joe -> FromPID ! "Hello Joe.";

_ -> FromPID ! "I don't know you."

end,

hello()

end.

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 Functions that call themselves
-module(hello_server).

-export([hello/0]).

hello() ->

receive

{FromPID, Who} ->

case Who of

robert -> FromPID ! "Hello Robert.";

mike -> FromPID ! "Hello Mike.";

joe -> FromPID ! "Hello Joe.";

_ -> FromPID ! "I don't know you."

end,

hello()

end.

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 This is weird...

and there's even more

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Erlang Culture Shock

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 Shock #1

Erlang's syntax is based on Prolog

-module(howdy).
-export([hi/1]).

hi(Name) ->
io:format('Hi there, ~p!~n', [Name]).

{person, First, Last} = {person, 'Paul', 'Barry'}.

howdy:hi(Last).
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 Shock #2

Erlang is not object-oriented

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 Shock #3

Everything in Erlang is immutable

Not just tuples and not just strings...

EVERYTHING

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 So... this doesn't work!

X = 10.
X = X + 1.

** exception error: no match of right hand side value 11

Y = X + 1.

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Erlang's troublesome = operator

The “=” operator does not mean “assign”

It means “match” or “bind to”

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 No side effects here!

Destructive updates are forbidden

and (as an added twist)

Variables must start with an Uppercase letter:

X
Pid
Func
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 Shock #4

There are no built-in looping constructs

No for and no while

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So... how do you loop?

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 List Comprehensions

Erlang:
Alist = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].
Doubled = [X*2 || X <- Alist].

Python:
alist = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
doubled = [x*2 for x in alist]

Note: alist and doubled are mutable; Alist and Doubled are not

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 Shock #5

“Regular” looping is via recursion

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 Spot the loop?
-module(hello_server).

-export([hello/0]).

hello() ->

receive

{FromPID, Who} ->

case Who of

robert -> FromPID ! "Hello Robert.";

mike -> FromPID ! "Hello Mike.";

joe -> FromPID ! "Hello Joe.";

_ -> FromPID ! "I don't know you."

end,

hello()
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end.
 Shock #6

Strings are stored as a

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 Sweet mother of all
things Erlang! Whose bright
idea was that?

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 Shock #7

There is no

if... then... else...

statement

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There are if and case expressions
but... they're kinda weird

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54
With enough pig-headed persistence,
weirdness can be overcome

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 So... who do I call to
help me learn Erlang?

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57
58
Erlang is a language you study
as getting up-to-speed with
Erlang takes time

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 Web Resources

http://www.erlang.org

Try Erlang:

http://www.tryerlang.org/

“Learn Some Erlang For Great Good!”:

http://learnyousomeerlang.com/

The Erlang Factory:

http://erlang-factory.com/

InfoQ:

http://www.infoq.com
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Some Unique “Characteristics”

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Banned by Ericsson in 1998 for
“not being open enough”

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 63
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5830318882717959520
64
This is all great, but...
how exactly do I use
Erlang to build a
fault-tolerant system?

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 Learn Three Things


Create an Erlang process with spawn()


Send a message to a process with !


Process a message with receive

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 Remember this code?
%% Saved in 'hello_server.erl'.

-module(hello_server).

-export([hello/0]).

hello() ->

receive

{FromPID, Who} ->

case Who of

robert -> FromPID ! "Hello Robert.";

mike -> FromPID ! "Hello Mike.";

joe -> FromPID ! "Hello Joe.";

_ -> FromPID ! "I don't know you."

end,

hello()

end. 67
 Create the hello() process

Pid = spawn(fun hello_server:hello/0).

<0.38.0>

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Send a message to a process with !

Pid ! robert.

robert

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 A little twist

Pid ! {self(), robert}.

{<0.31.0>,robert}

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Messages sent to a process with !
are received by receive

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 Can you spot the pattern match?
%% Saved in 'hello_server.erl'.

-module(hello_server).

-export([hello/0]).

hello() ->

receive

{FromPID, Who} ->

case Who of

robert -> FromPID ! "Hello Robert.";

mike -> FromPID ! "Hello Mike.";

joe -> FromPID ! "Hello Joe.";

_ -> FromPID ! "I don't know you."

end,

hello()

end. 72
 The {FromPID, Who} tuple matches
%% Saved in 'hello_server.erl'.

-module(hello_server).

-export([hello/0]).

hello() ->

receive

{FromPID, Who} ->

case Who of

robert -> FromPID ! "Hello Robert.";

mike -> FromPID ! "Hello Mike.";

joe -> FromPID ! "Hello Joe.";

_ -> FromPID ! "I don't know you."

end,

hello()

end. 73
 Send a message back...
%% Saved in 'hello_server.erl'.

-module(hello_server).

-export([hello/0]).

hello() ->

receive

{FromPID, Who} ->

case Who of

robert -> FromPID ! "Hello Robert.";

mike -> FromPID ! "Hello Mike.";

joe -> FromPID ! "Hello Joe.";

_ -> FromPID ! "I don't know you."

end,

hello()

end. 74
 spawn, send (!) then receive

Pid = spawn(fun hello_server:hello/0),

"Hello Robert."

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 Things get really interesting
when the processes are
linked together with spawn_link()
and the trap_exit signal

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 Processes that are linked together can
react appropriately to EXIT messages from
each other... and what happens next is
controlled by the programmer

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 Distributed Erlang

I need to spawn
hello/0 hello/0 is
on glasnost... registered
pbmac.itcarlow.ie as 'hr'

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glasnost.itcarlow.ie
Pid = spawn(fun hello_server:hello/0),

becomes
Pid = spawn(‘[email protected]’, hello_server, hello, []),

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 Over time, you'll end up repeating
a lot of your process management code...

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81
OTP is the jewel in Erlang's crown

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 So... if Erlang's so
cool, how come no one
is using it?

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The TIOBE Index

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85
Erlang in Telecoms

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Erlang in Data

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Erlang on the Web

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 Erlang in Gaming

“…Mochi Media is the world's

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Check out Bob Ippolito’s Erlang-Factory talks!
 More Erlang in Gaming

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Thanks to Malcolm Dowse (of DemonWare, Dublin) for permission to use these
images, which were first delivered as part of Malcolm's talk to Erlang Factory London 2011.
So... is Erlang
worth learning?

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Yes

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 Lots more to discover...


Fun with fun

Bit-strings and bit syntax

ETS and DETS

“Live” code updating

The Mnesia Distributed Database

The Standard Library

CEAN

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 Friendly Community

erlang-questions mailing list

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Questions?

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