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| lyn at healthquiz.com |
 Posted: Mon Jun 28, 1999 11:14 pm |
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Guest
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I just posted this to comp.lang.functional, but I suspect most of you
will have opinions about this (sensitive) topic. I am sorry if I
sound harsh, but please remember this is coming from someone who loves
erlang and wants to see it succeed.
mike_at_erix.ericsson.se (Mike Williams) writes:
> 3. We (Ericsson) have used the functional programming language Erlang
> with great success to build a large number of switching systems, call
> centres, test equipment etc. I.e. millions of lines of code. The
> people specifying these systems have never considered that they are
> implemented in a functional language
>
Erlang is the most underappreciated technology I have ever seen. I
dove in about 2 months ago and have felt nothing but glee and awe
throughout the learning experience. I salivate when I think what a
wonderful world it would be if people had any notion of what the
language, and more importantly the environment and libraries could be
used for. For instance, I just want to cry when I think of how many
people are using PHP3 + (database) when something like erlang + mnesia
is available. It's not that e + m should *always* be chosen, it's
just that they've never heard of it! And I'm afraid they never will.
Which brings me to my own personal moan: I believe ericsson is failing
miserably in promoting the environment. The web site is stagnant, we
have no idea how development is progressing, there is no public cvs
mirror, development goes on behind closed doors, and nobody sends
announcements to the open source community. Why hasn't erlang been
trumpeted to slashdot, linux weekly news, elj.com, etc? If ericsson
would just hire *one* person to promote openness in the erlang
community, erlang could catch like wildfire. Look at zope.org for an
example of how corporate-backed open source *should* be done.
The stated reason for open-sourcing erlang was to encourage its spread
outside of ericsson. I don't understand why they leapt such a huge
chasm only to sit down on the nearest stump.
-Lyn
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| jhague at dadgum.com |
| Posted: Tue Jun 29, 1999 1:59 am |
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>Erlang is the most underappreciated technology I have ever seen. I
>dove in about 2 months ago and have felt nothing but glee and awe
>throughout the learning experience.
I agree. Erlang is wonderful.
>Which brings me to my own personal moan: I believe ericsson is failing
>miserably in promoting the environment.
I think Ericsson has done something wonderful to promote Erlang: they've
actually written real commercial applications using it. This is rarely
true of other newfangled languages you run across on the web.
Specifically trying to market a language to people doesn't work (well,
okay, there's Java, so sometimes it works  You can shout all you want
about the benefits of Erlang, but most programmers will shrug and say
"It's not like C++" or "But that's not what I get paid to work with."
>The web site is stagnant, we
>have no idea how development is progressing, there is no public cvs
>mirror, development goes on behind closed doors, and nobody sends
>announcements to the open source community.
Some points:
1. Erlang isn't a typical open source system. It wasn't released as open
source until it had already been a mature product for a number of years.
It doesn't need weekly updates.
2. As such, it is difficult for outsiders to jump in and make changes to
the core Erlang system. I'd argue that this isn't needed, as Ericsson is
already actively maintaining the language and implementations.
The only real problem is that the current open source version is more
than a bit behind Ericsson's internal releases. I've been told that this
will be rememdied later this year.
>Why hasn't erlang been
>trumpeted to slashdot, linux weekly news, elj.com, etc?
Actually, I sent something to slashdot about Erlang when it was released
in February, but they didn't mention it. To them, I suppose, they didn't
see widespread interest in mentioning an oddball functional language used
in embedded telephone switches released by a large Swedish corporation
I remember when I worked at Ericsson I had the darndest time explaining
to people what I did during the day!
James
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| eeicmui at eei.ericsson.s |
| Posted: Tue Jun 29, 1999 8:02 am |
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James Hague wrote:
>
> >Erlang is the most underappreciated technology I have ever seen. I
> >dove in about 2 months ago and have felt nothing but glee and awe
> >throughout the learning experience.
>
> I agree. Erlang is wonderful.
I HAVE to second that. I've found Erlang to be far superior to C++
when it comes to the domain of Telecom applications.
> >Which brings me to my own personal moan: I believe ericsson is failing
> >miserably in promoting the environment.
>
> I think Ericsson has done something wonderful to promote Erlang: they've
> actually written real commercial applications using it. This is rarely
> true of other newfangled languages you run across on the web.
I feel this is not enough. Marketing is essential, however good the
language is. People just dont have want to spend time looking for
alternatives...because they dont have the time. Someone has to put it
under
their nose.
Maybe the Bluetail guys can do something about this :)
Chandru
--
Ericsson Systems Expertise Ltd., Athlone, Ireland.
Tel: +353 902 31816
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| klacke at bluetail.com |
| Posted: Fri Jul 02, 1999 9:13 pm |
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jhague_at_dadgum.com wrote:
> Actually, I sent something to slashdot about Erlang when it was released
> in February, but they didn't mention it. To them, I suppose, they didn't
> see widespread interest in mentioning an oddball functional language used
> in embedded telephone switches released by a large Swedish corporation
It's been mentioned there a couple of times, but it's clear that
the hype surrounding java is a completely different ballgame.
I just read a book call "Open sources" with essays from
a bunch of the open source key people like Eric Raymond etc, and
there the release of Erlang is mentioned a number of times
as a sign o' the times, where large corps like Ericsson
realize that open source software is the way of the future.
All of you in this list should be aware of the radical difference
we in the initial erlang community feel now that Erlang is
open source compared to earlier when it was truly proprietary.
We *know* that erlang is much superior to many (most ((all ??!!))
of the other programming tech's available out there, and we've
known it for quite some time. Thus at least I hope that it'll
spread (possibly not like wildfire), just on technical merit
if we just give it some time.
Ericsson has no previous experience in this kind of endavour.
Furthermore, ericsson has a long tradition of never bragging
about what sort of tech is inside the equipment that ericsson
sells. As a matter of fact not even talking about it, did you
ever see an ericsson add talking about "XYZ inside " or something
like that. I did not. So we shouldn't expect Ericsson to start
talking/bragging about their superior software technology in
order to promote the real products. I personally thing that
ericsson should do just that, but don't expect to see it happen.
As it is now, Erlang will have to survive in the open source
community soley on it's own merits.
The new company (bluetail) where I and a bunch of other
old erlangers are working will (as opposed to Ericsson) brag about
the cool tech we're using to build our stuff. http://www.bluetail.com
Without Erlang at least I can't imagine that the sort of stuff we build
would be realistic.
Cheers
/klacke
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Received: by kaja.bluetail.com; Wed, 30 Jun 1999 22:59:10 +0200
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 22:59:10 +0200
Message-Id: <199906302059.WAA00486_at_kaja.bluetail.com>
From: Claes Wikstrom <klacke_at_bluetail.com>
To: jhague_at_dadgum.com
CC: erlang-questions_at_erlang.org
In-reply-to: <199906281557.KAA32713_at_babba.advancenet.net> (message from James
Hague on Mon, 28 Jun 99 20:54:26 -0500)
Subject: Re: Visibility of Erlang
References: <199906281557.KAA32713_at_babba.advancenet.net>
> Actually, I sent something to slashdot about Erlang when it was released
> in February, but they didn't mention it. To them, I suppose, they didn't
> see widespread interest in mentioning an oddball functional language used
> in embedded telephone switches released by a large Swedish corporation
It's been mentioned there a couple of times, but it's clear that
the hype surrounding java is a completely different ballgame.
I just read a book call "Open sources" with essays from
a bunch of the open source key people like Eric Raymond etc, and
there the release of Erlang is mentioned a number of times
as a sign o' the times, where large corps like Ericsson
realize that open source software is the way of the future.
All of you in this list should be aware of the radical difference
we in the initial erlang community feel now that Erlang is
open source compared to earlier when it was truly proprietary.
We *know* that erlang is much superior to many (most ((all ??!!))
of the other programming tech's available out there, and we've
known it for quite some time. Thus at least I hope that it'll
spread (possibly not like wildfire), just on technical merit
if we just give it some time.
Ericsson has no previous experience in this kind of endavour.
Furthermore, ericsson has a long tradition of never bragging
about what sort of tech is inside the equipment that ericsson
sells. As a matter of fact not even talking about it, did you
ever see an ericsson add talking about "XYZ inside " or something
like that. I did not. So we shouldn't expect Ericsson to start
talking/bragging about their superior software technology in
order to promote the real products. I personally thing that
ericsson should do just that, but don't expect to see it happen.
As it is now, Erlang will have to survive in the open source
community soley on it's own merits.
The new company (bluetail) where I and a bunch of other
old erlangers are working will (as opposed to Ericsson) brag about
the cool tech we're using to build our stuff. http://www.bluetail.com
Without Erlang at least I can't imagine that the sort of stuff we build
would be realistic.
Cheers
/klacke
--XAA12871.930776731/mail.pi.se--
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| klacke at bluetail.com |
| Posted: Fri Jul 02, 1999 9:23 pm |
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Guest
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> I feel this is not enough. Marketing is essential, however good the
> language is. People just dont have want to spend time looking for
> alternatives...because they dont have the time. Someone has to put it
> under
> their nose.
>
> Maybe the Bluetail guys can do something about this
>
I don't know about that, we did however relase our first product
the Bluetail Mail Robustifier on time on July 1, It's about as cool
as it gets and is shipping to our first customers.
The Manual, (but no trial download (yet)) on the web site.
/klacke
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