Re: FAQ: Why Erlang?

feeds@yuku.com (strattonbrazil) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:22:19 GMT

@Bjorn
Besides your experience with Erlang, did you have any difficulty working with the half-edge data structure as an immutable structure doing things like building the primitive up to operations like extrusions? Did you use any references that particularly helped doing this kind of work with immutable structures?

Re: FAQ: Why Erlang?

feeds@yuku.com (dgud) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 01:20:27 GMT

Arquebus: You still have to do the type checking in run time, HIPE is a machine code compiler (not available for windows) for erlang which gains some speed over interpreted
code but not so much I think (I havn't measured for a long time).

But those of you who are on linux or mac can try to HIPE compile the gb_trees, gb_sets, array and lists in stdlib and all of the wings code
and see if you gain anything.

Re: FAQ: Why Erlang?

feeds@yuku.com (arquebus) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:08:58 GMT

I have a general compiler question. It seems that most all dynamically typed programming languages are interpreted (run on a VM). Im wondering if that always has to be so, for example if Erlang were compiled to a machine code executable, could it still be a dynamically typed langauge?

Re: FAQ: Why Erlang?

feeds@yuku.com (arquebus) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 14:06:23 GMT

deerwood wrote:
I don't see the power of Haskell over Erlang yet. Can you please explain?

deerwoood- Erlang is about the simplest programming language in existence (that I know of). You only have two syntax expressions in Erlang, functions and pattern matching. As I mentioned before, if and case statements are just syntactic sugar for pattern matching. And since pattern matching makes up the head of most...

Re: FAQ: Why Erlang?

feeds@yuku.com (deerwood) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 19:44:34 GMT

bjorng: >> The interesting thing about Haskell is how extremely brief the programs are. Erlang looks chatty in comparison.

When back from vacation, would you mind to elaborate a little bit more, please?

Note, that I messaged some MMPORG people about Erlang and got so many messages back I wasn't prepared for, I could only handle them by ignoring most of them (for now).

One filtered answer pointed to defmarco's

Re: FAQ: Why Erlang?

feeds@yuku.com (GetaVe) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:07:36 GMT

Wow! Sweet posts guys thanks so much! That was really great. And thank you for taking the time to respond.

I have one more question for you Bjorn. Does your significant other (if you have one?) know how instrumental Wings3D has been to so many people around the world? And if so, what do they think about the great work you (and other dev team guys of course) have done?

Re: FAQ: Why Erlang?

feeds@yuku.com (bjorng) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:29:49 GMT

deerwood, I revised my original post slightly, avoiding generalizations about other virtual machines.

Re: FAQ: Why Erlang?

feeds@yuku.com (bjorng) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:49:08 GMT

<<3. Where have you been for the last few years and/or, what made you decide to step back in to Wings development?>>

In Stockholm, mostly.

I needed a rest from Wings after having dedicated most of my spare to it for several years.

I come back partly because Wings again seemed interesting, and partly because there were several new features in Erlang/OTP that we could use to use improve Wings (for...

Re: FAQ: Why Erlang?

feeds@yuku.com (ggaliens) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:54:16 GMT

GetaVe ...

A programming langauge could be developed in just about any other major programming language that is "fully featured".

It might not be a great idea to try to write and Erlang interpreter starting with Logo (turtle graphics) ... but writing any
interpreter in "C" is a fairly safe bet. Sprinkle in some assembler code as needed for optimization.

A lot of hobby folks will code some tool that is useful to ones self. That's how I...

Re: FAQ: Why Erlang?

feeds@yuku.com (arquebus) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:43:40 GMT

I think I can unload the task of explaining general stuff like how programming languages are made from Bjorn

>>2. More seriously, from all the little tidbits I have read here and there it seems like you have or have had a major role in the development of Erlang itself. My question is somewhat more generalized but, how was Erlang created? A programming language is used to make a program. What is used to make the language?! (this really baffles me. I have heard there are base...

Re: FAQ: Why Erlang?

feeds@yuku.com (GetaVe) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:12:52 GMT

By the way, even though I know your name is pronounced Bee Yorne (at least I think it is?) I still can't help but say Buh Jorne every time I read your name.. :P

Re: FAQ: Why Erlang?

feeds@yuku.com (GetaVe) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:11:39 GMT

Alright since we are diverging slightly from the original intent of this thread (at least as far as the thread title is concerned) I want to chime in with my few questions.

1. Are you, or are you not, in fact, a genius?

2. More seriously, from all the little tidbits I have read here and there it seems like you have or have had a major role in the development of Erlang itself. My question is somewhat more generalized but, how was Erlang created? A programming language is...

Re: FAQ: Why Erlang?

feeds@yuku.com (ycarry) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:50:04 GMT

<>
excellent! jhouck question make my day

Re: FAQ: Why Erlang?

feeds@yuku.com (deerwood) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 22:47:13 GMT

Thanks Björn for giving us your background, "self-taught" people are the best ones usually. As faszinating as optigons interview. And, yes, the answer to life and all is definitely 42 and the base must be at least 5. Note the endless universes spreading out of that.

>> Obviously, any language implemented on a virtual machine can't match C in raw performance.

I disagree: virtual machines can analyze code at runtime and then optimize, a C compiler...

Re: FAQ: Why Erlang?

feeds@yuku.com (arquebus) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:24:15 GMT

thanks Bjorn

I wanted to ask a question about Erlang too. How did Armstrong and Williams (very non-swedish sounding names) end up at Ericsson? Was Ericsson headhunting for researchers or were those guys looking around to do telecommunications?

Re: FAQ: Why Erlang?

feeds@yuku.com (bjorng) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:08:57 GMT

No degree. I am completely self-taught. I started programming on the TI-57 and TI-59 programmable calculators almost 30 years ago. All I know about computer science and software engineering I have learned from my own experience and by reading books (many books).

...

Re: FAQ: Why Erlang?

feeds@yuku.com (puzzledpaul) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:33:11 GMT

<< Is the answer to life really "42"? >>

Did HH ever mention what base was used?

Re: FAQ: Why Erlang?

feeds@yuku.com (jhouck) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:07:02 GMT

Is the answer to life really "42"?

Re: FAQ: Why Erlang?

feeds@yuku.com (Fonte Boa) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:05:12 GMT

Or another Monica Zetterlund?? (i love her)

Re: FAQ: Why Erlang?

feeds@yuku.com (puzzledpaul) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:59:48 GMT

Why hasn't Sweden produced another Bjorn Borg or Abba? ...

FAQ: Why Erlang?

feeds@yuku.com (bjorng) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:54:35 GMT

Why is Wings implemented in Erlang and not in C or C++?

I did not know that Wings would be so popular that other people would want to help developing it or trying to write importers for the Wings file format. I just wanted a decent 3D modeler for my own use.

I started implementing Wings because it was not possible buy Nendo at the time (in 2001). I wanted to do some 3D modeling and I had played around with the Nendo demo and liked it. I realized that...