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Comment by im_down_w_otp | Hacker News Reader

  gen_statem a new state machine behavior

Very cool! For reasons not the least of which are the community involvement in its evolution.

  dialyzer: the support for maps is very much extended both the type specification syntax and the type analysis.

OMG! Yes! Finally `maps` don't have to be a giant escape hatch in the type-checking system.

  Experimental support for Unix Domain Sockets

Sweet tap-dancing Moses! This is awesome. I've wanted this for, so so so long. This should pave the way to all kinds of useful things. Better database clients, better Redis clients, more straightforward integration with things like libfiu and tcsd.

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Re: Unix Domain Sockets

This should almost immediately help Elixir, too, correct?

Hmm, not sure why you got downvoted. Seems like a fair question. Yes this should be available in Elixir as well.

I cannot find the documentation for gen_statem anywhere; all I find is references to some specific examples.

http://erldocs.com/current/stdlib/gen_statem.html?i=0&search...

Thank you!

Here: http://erlang.org/doc/man/gen_statem.html

Ah, thank you!

From the docs:

"This is a new behavior in Erlang/OTP 19.0. It has been thoroughly reviewed, is stable enough to be used by at least two heavy OTP applications, and is here to stay. Depending on user feedback, we do not expect but can find it necessary to make minor not backward compatible changes into Erlang/OTP 20.0."

It's honestly hard to overstate how excellent seeing that note is. It's a significant change in tone regarding community involvement in the design, structure, and implementation of core OTP components. It's really exciting to see.

I can't help but see this as part of a halo-effect that originates in the inclusive and thriving community around Elixir. It really seems like both ecosystems are getting a lot from each other right now.

I think it's probably more of a consequence of the long long discussions that were had at https://github.com/erlang/otp/pull/960 -- with 15 participants from the OTP team, regular Erlangers, and I'm sure a few Elixir people too.

My idea here is not to remove merit from Elixir in helping the ecosystem, but in pointing out that the Erlang community itself is expanding on these ideas of involvement and a more open design.

Oh I absolutely agree. That was a lively and excellent discussion, and my comment had more to do with increased openness and engagement on the part of Ericsson proper to being more involving and ambitious with respect to outside influences than it had to do with contrasting the Erlang community with the Elixir community.

Also... I have a "6x Programmer" hat for you the next time I see you. When you mentioned it after seeing my "#7 Dad" hat at EF SF, I couldn't help but have a couple made.

Wow, that thread is impressive. I think I've never seen a Github thread that long, complex, and yet with such politeness.

The internet may have ruined me, but I somehow expected the thread to end up in insults and nasty things after a while; and here I am, amazed. Really well done.

The OTP team and the community have made a concerted effort to work more together that has been in the process for years now. Even the community based build tool rebar3 is being adopted into the official Erlang/OTP ecosystem.

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