a theoretical question. After reading Armstrongs ‘programming erlang’ book I was wondering the following: It will take some time to learn Erlang. Let alone master it. It really is fundamentally different in a lot of respects.
So my question: Is it possible to write ‘like erlang’ or with some ‘erlang like framework’, which given that you take care not to create functions with sideffects, you can create scaleable reliable apps as well as in Erlang? Maybe with the same msgs sending, loads of ‘mini processes’ paradigm.
The advantage would be to not throw all your accumulated C/C++ knowledge over the fence.
Any thoughts about this would be welcome
Yes, it is possible, but…
Probably the best answer for this question is given by Robert Virding’s First Rule:
Very good rule is use the right tool for the task. Erlang excels in concurrency and reliability. C/C++ was not designed with these properties in mind.
If you don’t want to throw away your C/C++ knowledge and experience and your project allows this kind of division, good approach is to create a mixed solution. Write concurrent, communication and error handling code in Erlang, then add C/C++ parts, which will do CPU and IO bound stuff.