Hacker News Reader

Comment by styluss | Hacker News Reader

When I did Distributed Systems in Uni, it was in C (huuuge mess) and when I visited another Uni, they joked that they taught the course in Java, because "we're not savages".

I keep thinking how much more we could've actually learned about DS if we weren't fighting fires with C.

View on HN

I regard all distributed systems not written in a BEAM language with suspicion. Just seems a bit weird not to use a tech stack designed specifically for your problem. It's not everything, of course, but it's definitely a strike against a project

As I had to look it up: BEAM is the erlang virtual machine. A number of languages can be happily compiled to BEAM:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13446521

Over 20 languages, in fact.

https://gist.github.com/macintux/6349828#alternative-languag...

It could be very difficult to implement an industrial-strength

Java on BEAM :-(

I'd think so, given the immutability, lightweight processes, and other Erlang-specific features baked into the BEAM.

That's one reason I like Erlang and the BEAM so much: it's an opinionated language running on an opinionated VM that are made for each other, not a general-purpose system that has to be all things to all people.

The JVM is perfectly adequate as a kitchen sink. The BEAM doesn't need to be.

Although the JVM has many limitations, it has important capabilities

that are lacking in BEAM. The limitations of BEAM are severe,

especially for implementing Universal Intelligent Systems,

which is the primary challenge of Computer Science for this decade.

See the following:

Project Liftoff: Universal Intelligent Systems (UIS) by 2030

https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3428114

Reply on news.ycombinator.com