É tempo de Erlang (finalmente)

Durante as últimas semanas tenho-me embrenhado na programação com Erlang, num projecto em que faz sentido utilizar esta linguagem.
WebSockets (espero que para mihares de conexões persistentes), Redis, Mongo ...

Para alguém vindo de Java, depois Groovy, em seguida Ruby estes têm sido tempos de esforço mental !

Depois de me familiarizar com alguns conceitos novos (especialmente um novo paradigma de programação) tenho, finalmente, um protótipo a funcionar.

Tem sido um prazer trabalhar com Erlang. Existem imensos recursos disponíveis (repositórios, bibliotecas, documentação) e uma vez que eu sou um programador-google (sim, algumas pessoas acham isso mau mas eu não) tenho sido capaz de encontrar a informação necessária para construir o que pretendo.

Dei por mim a ler imenso código-fonte das bibliotecas que uso, e ser capaz de aprender a partir daí é uma forma excelente de consolidar conhecimento e de me expor a diferentes estilos de programação.
Isso irá fazer de mim um melhor programador Erlang, um melhor programador !

Continuarei a escrever sobre esta aventura e, provavelmente, partilhar alguma informação convosco !

Estes são bons tempos. Percorro novos caminhos e é isso que faz programar ser divertido !

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Time for some Erlang in my life (at last)

For the past two weeks i've been dabbling with Erlang for a project where it makes sense to use it.
WebSockets (hopefully some thousands of persistent connections), Redis, Mongo ...

For someone who came from Java, then Groovy, then Ruby these have been some mind-bending times !

After getting myself acquainted with some new concepts (mostly a new programming paradigm) i finally have a working prototype.

It has been a joy to work with Erlang. There are inumerous resources (repositories, libraries, documentation) and since i'm a google driven developer (yes some people say it's a bad thing but i don't) i've been able to find the needed info to build what i want.
I found myself reading lots of source code for the libraries i use and being able to learn from that is a great way to consolidate knowledge and to be exposed to different coding styles. It will definitely make me a better Erlanger, a better developer.

I'll keep writing about this journey and, probably, will share some info with you !

These are good times. I'm taking new paths and this is what makes developing fun !

Ler este artigo em português

Erlang and OTP in Action review (part 1)

This is the first post about the review i'm doing on the book Erlang and OTP in Action (MEAP) by Martin Logan, Eric Merritt and Richard Carlsson and published by Manning (http://www.manning.com/logan/). 

This review will be a collection of posts describing my experience as i follow this book.

I started my reading at Appendix A where installation methods for different Operating Systems of Erlang are described. This section gives clear and concise directions as how you can get Erlang installed in your system. Being a Ubuntu user i already had it trough the distribution package manager but still could find very good use for this section as i followed instructions and got Erlang installed at a Mac computer trough faxien.

Next i went straight to chapter 1 where the authors explain the meaning of OTP and give us an insight of what Erlang is.

Trough this chapter we get to know some of the key concepts associated with Erlang: Distribution, Concurrency, Fault-Tolerance. We also get familiar with the Erlang runtime system and virtual machine.

I'm finding this book useful for what i want, to get a good insight into the technology/language. More than code listings showing how to say hello to the world or how to write the next social media revolution app i need to understand what i'm doing and most of all why !

I'm looking forward to get into the next chapter (Erlang language essentials) and as soon as i get there you'll be the first one to know ...

Started reading Erlang OTP in Action

Guilty ! I got the book a couple of weeks ago and i haven't started reading it ...
But all is about to change now. I started reading the book and i will start publishing my impressions on it as i go along. Stay tunned !

Erlang in Action MEAP

Ok i'm warming up... by this time i already have my virtual machine ready with Ubuntu. I'll be starting real soon to post my experience in following the book. It will be a review as you follow thing !

a book review is always a good excuse to learn...

A couple of days ago while i was browsing trough some tweets i found one that caught my attention. Manning, the book publisher was looking for reviewers for this book http://www.manning.com/logan/
I sent an email saying that i'm a complete noob (though i can tell Erlang from an apple) but that i wished to learn Erlang for a long time and this would be the perfect oportunity. Guess what ? They've sent me a copy !
I will be posting my progress trough the book and hopefully i'll actually learn some Erlang.