Ask HN: Why is Erlang so unpopular? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why is Erlang so unpopular?

19 pointsmannicken8 comments

It seems like internet is filled with articles about Python and Ruby on Rails and .NET and LINQ and all that stuff.

Why don't people post more info on Erlang?

Given how popular Erlang was three or four years ago I think that its current popularity is quite stunning. Back then the learning curve was quite a bit steeper since we lacked Joe's book, lots of interesting and informative blog posts, and the current variety of modules and systems to examine and play with.

Info about Python, Rails, .NET/LINQ, and even Java is the sort of stuff that helps a large portion of the programming community get things done in their daily tasks. For most people languages like Erlang, Haskell, Clojure, and Lisp are interesting diversions that they might one day aspire to be able to get paid for, what info that is out there is mostly provided to share the joy of the language and the problems it can solve rather than trying to keep you from going postal at your day job.

I think that more people don't commit to Erlang because they're afraid that it's just "the cool thing" - for now. It seems like more and more people are becoming aware of the importance of learning at least one functional programming language, but perhaps aren't sure which to commit to. I personally was a bit torn: Erlang has some great features and is production tested, Clojure is Lisp-esque (kill two birds with one stone) and has access to the Java libraries, OCaml is blazing fast, Haskell seems to be the pick for the "eggheads" and has lazy evaluation (purists seem to gloat over this one), etc... I think it comes down to risk...

Why is chocolate more popular than brown rice?

On the contrary, brown rice is more popular than chocolate. Consider that most of the world's population survives primarily on rice with some other protein sources and water.

Yet in regards to chocolate's sugar and instant gratification versus rice's underlying substance and scalability, I think kirubakaran's analogy was subtly accurate.

People don't post more info on Erlang because people don't use Erlang as much.

.NET, Python, and RoR have much wider use.

The better question is, why don't people use Erlang?

People do, but most problems can still be solved just as easily by the standard set of programmer tools. Most desktop apps don't need to scale across multiple processors (yet) and most web services can get by without needing serious scaling muscle. Some of this is starting to change, which is why languages like Erlang are being noticed and talked about (and even used) at the bleeding-edge. Revisit this question in four or five years and the question will probably be more along the lines of "why are people still using <insert current popular language here>?"

Doesn't seem too unpopular right now.

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