On: Why I program in Erlang (2012)

[macintux]

I can't speak to Kotlin, but Clojure : Java :: Elixir : Erlang doesn't seem like a great analogy. Clojure and Java have very different philosophies, while Elixir has virtually identical semantics to Erlang.

[transfire → macintux]

Kotlin : Java :: Elixir :: Erlang

Clojure : Java :: LFE : Erlang

[macintux → transfire]

Mayyyybe. LFE is still much closer to Erlang than Clojure is to Java.

[Jtsummers → macintux]

Yeah, I learned LFE a few years back after years of (sadly only) hobby Erlang programming. I don't think anything in it surprised me. It felt very much like: What if Erlang's syntax were replaced with sexprs and we used Lisp-y style macros? Clojure's relationship to Java is nowhere near the same.

Knowing Erlang + Scheme and CL, LFE like exactly what I expected, with a strong Erlang vibe. Knowing Java + Scheme and CL, Clojure felt nothing like Java except that it could access Java classes and objects.

[macintux → Jtsummers]

Fundamentally the BEAM is very opinionated with a limited range of possible language designs that would work with it. No mutability, e.g.

I love the opinionated, constrained nature of Erlang and the BEAM, vs the kitchen sink approach of Java and the JVM.

[janosett → macintux]

Maybe Scala : Java :: Elixir : Erlang

[anko → janosett]

I'm not too sure - scala really has a crazy number of language features, which makes the scope of it way bigger. I'd say kotlin : Java is closer :)

[kaba0 → anko]

Actually, scala ain’t that big of a language, especially not compared to kotlin. Scala just prefers a bit more complex, but full feature over adding many less complex features that cover the same deal, which is more similar to Kotlin.