A few months ago, I started my journey to learn erlang. The more I dig into the language and libraries, the more I love it.

  • The pattern matching at the core is the language plays so elegantly with recursion.
  • Single-assignment of variables turns from what sounds like a curse to a blessing really quickly.
  • Modules and their ability to be distributed makes distributed algorithms and systems a constant consideration from the start and one that the language can assist you with.

My absolute favorite part is that as you’re forced to work inside of the restrictions the language places on you you find parts of your answer disappearing as you notice that the few pattern matches you wrote to handle certain cases are really just modified forms of the same.

If you’re looking for a new language to dig into, I highly recommend giving it a look. The ideas it presents are really out there, and will get you thinking in new ways, even if you have nothing to program in Erlang.