Programming Erlang
Software for a Concurrent World
by Joe Armstrong · first published 2008
72% recommend25% neutral3% critical
Why HN recommends it
Accessible, engaging introduction to Erlang from one of its creators, teaching concurrency, process-based design and the philosophy behind the language. Suits beginners and programmers coming from OO or Elixir.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
A multi-user game, web site, cloud application, or networked database can have thousands of users all interacting at the same time. You need a powerful, industrial-strength tool to handle the really hard problems inherent in parallel, concurrent environments. You need Erlang. In this second edition of the bestselling Programming Erlang, you'll learn how to write parallel programs that scale effortlessly on multicore systems. Using Erlang, you'll be surprised at how easy it becomes to deal with parallel problems, and how much faster and more efficiently your programs run. That's because Erla
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…Painters - Graham Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence - Norvig Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning - Bishop The Java Language Specification - Gosling, Joy, Steele Learning Python - Lutz & Ascher Programming Erlang - Armstrong Programming Ruby - Thomas, Fowler, Hunt Calculus - Spivak How to Solve It - Polya The Design and Implementation of the 4.4 FreeBSD Operating System - McKusick, Bostic, Karels, Quarterman…
on “ASK HN: Hacker Bibles” ↗…but on the other it renders it difficult to pick one to read. :D I'd prefer a book that doesn't start with very basic stuff, eg explaining loops, if-statements and what not, I know that already. ;) "Programming Erlang" by Joe Armstrong was really perfect in that regard. So, dear HN, do you have any recommendations? Or maybe there is something better to check out than Prolog?
on “Ask HN: Good books to learn Prolog?” ↗…to learn Elixir, you should learn enough Erlang prior, to get a better understanding of how Erlang/OTP all fits together. Thus, I would recommend the following structure: 1. Read Joe Armstrong's Book: Programming Erlang to learn the basics and the philosophy behind Erlang from one of its creators. [1] 2. Read Erlang and OTP in Action to learn more about the OTP (Open Telecom Platform), applications and gen_servers (which…
on “Elixir v1.10” ↗Hey, everyone. I'm just trying to learn some erlang, I'm working through Joe Armstrong's "Programming Erlang", which I like quite a lot, so far. BUT it would be nice to have some real world code to read as well. As I am not much more than a beginner in functional programming, this would benefit me greatly. So,…
on “Erlang code worth reading” ↗For Erlang, there is the book by Joe Armstrong: https://pragprog.com/book/jaerlang2/programming-erlang The problem with learning functional languages is finding pragmatic learning materials. I would claim F# is currently the most approachable functional language (just my opinion but I have at least toyed…
on “Why WhatsApp Only Needs 50 Engineers for Its 900M Users” ↗…and a wonderful course based on it - Introduction to Systematic Program Design by Gregor Kiczales (the author of The Art Of Metaobject Protocol) * Armstrong's thesys armstrong_thesis_2003.pdf and his Programming Erlang book. * Programming Languages course by Dan Grossman (also on Coursera) * Two Scala courses Martin Odersky * The classic Haskell tutorial http://www.haskell.org/tutorial/ * ANSI CL and On Lisp books…
on “Functional programming books review” ↗I highly recommend reading Programming Erlang by Joe Armstrong first. It's a great read, it's quick, and it will make you a better dev, regardless of language. Once you've read it, then go write Elixir. Elixir's syntax and string handling address…
on “Ask HN: Should I learn Elixir or Erlang first?” ↗I never understood why Erlang syntax has been so commonly maligned. I had no trouble getting through Joe Armstrong's Programming Erlang in less than a week, and the syntax never required any conscious moment to "click," it just flowed right past. The only exception at first was the operator precedence rules inherited from Prolog, but…
on “Getting started with Erlang: a new way to look at Erlang's syntax” ↗Since it's already been five years, it might be worth considering Erlang instead of Elixr. I'd recommend Programming Erlang: Software for a Concurrent World. It was written by Joe Armstrong who designed Erlang and "sold" it internally across Ericsson to people who were not programmers. They were people who were using Erlang…
on “OTP 23” ↗For me I've had most fun with Erlang. There are lots of new paradigms i discovered that I wasn't exposed to before, like, pattern matching, OTP system., Programming Erlang by Joe Armstrong is a really book and lots of credit goes to the book for making it enjoyable.
on “Ask HN: What language is the most fun to learn” ↗…agree, Erlang has some great ideas, especially with respect to messaging and parallel processes. I'm still more comfortable with CL (by dint of experience), but Armstrong's book (http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Erlang-Software-Concurrent...) has been a great read so far.
on “Sorry, Lisp. I tried.” ↗…official Getting Started manual http://erlang.org/doc/getting_started/part_frame.html 3) learn about erlang OTP http://www.erlang.org/doc/design_principles/part_frame.html 4) this book is a MUST get! "Programming Erlang: Software for a Concurrent World" by Joe Armstrong http://www.pragprog.com/titles/jaerlang/programming-erlang good luck!
on “Ask HN: Learning Erlang from scratch” ↗Erlang is fun and a weekend read. I recommend "Programming Erlang" by Joe Armstrong.
on “Ask HN: I want to build/learn something this weekend - suggestions?” ↗…are using Django at my startup now : the documentation is absolutely awesome. On the other hand I remember doing lots of Erlang/OTP two years ago (failed startup that never launched...). Equipped with "Programming Erlang" by Joe Armstrong, and Google of course. Brilliant book, and lots of documentation available for Erlang. But when it came to the real thing, OTP, its best pratices and idioms, it was much harder to find…
on “The Most Important Language Feature No One Talks About” ↗As a long time Java programmer I recommend these two: http://www.amazon.com/ERLANG-Programming-Francesco-Cesarini/... http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Erlang-Software-Concurrent... Okay, just kidding. =) On a serious note, Effective Java is one of the best out there.
on “Ask HN: Good Java books for aspiring Clojurians?” ↗