CODEWITHSUNDEEP
functional-programmingerlangcoding-style
chaoticsynergy
chaoticsynergy

Reputation: 81

Erlang: doing a good job

I've done a bit of functional programming, and I have a couple online references, so I'm finding basic Erlang programming pretty easy.

But since I've done far more procedural/object-oriented programming than functional programming, I expect my Erlang code isn't very well styled or efficient.

Can anybody recommend any resources that cover good, efficient, well-styled functional programming?

thank you!

Upvotes: 3

Views: 664

Answers (3)

Arvind Kumar Avinash
Arvind Kumar Avinash

Reputation: 79085

I landed here while looking for good learning resources on Erlang. Since all the links, except http://erlang.org/download/erlang-book-part1.pdf, in the existing answers are dead, I thought of writing my answer based on my experience with Erlang in the last few days.

I found https://learnyousomeerlang.com/content a valuable resource and the best part is that it is free. This excellent work by Fred Hebert made me comfortable with Erlang in less than a week. I highly recommend this book to anyone starting their journey with Erlang.

Irrespective of how good a book or audio/video you use to learn the concepts, you can not be comfortable with a programming language unless you practice. So, my next advice would be to install Erlang and practice what you learn. Installation is quite easy.

Installing Erlang on a Windows system: Use the command, choco install erlang on Windows cmd. Of course, you must have Chocolatey installed package manager on your Windows system before you use this command.

Here is the list of package managers for other operating systems (source):

  • For Homebrew on macOS: brew install erlang
  • For MacPorts on macOS: port install erlang
  • For Ubuntu and Debian: `apt-get install erlang
  • For Fedora: yum install erlang
  • For ArchLinux and Manjaro: pacman -S erlang
  • For FreeBSD: pkg install erlang

While you can use any text editor to write Erlang code, I highly recommend you use VS Code. And, if you use VS Code, do try the erlang extension by Pierrick Gourlain - it's an awesome extension which not only helps with writing the well-formatted code but also with learning Erlang.

Upvotes: 1

Hynek -Pichi- Vychodil
Hynek -Pichi- Vychodil

Reputation: 26121

If you think about architecture and design as about programing strategy and about coding style as about tactics than good sources are:

I think main rules are:

  • make short and readable functions
  • keep number of parameters, tuple members, record parameters and other low (less than 5) - structure your data
  • do and undo thinks in same function - make safe functions - avoid others to shoot themselves
  • KISS - Keep It Simple and Stupid (Stupid doesn't mean Dumb but don't make over-smart)

Upvotes: 1

Mike Hamer
Mike Hamer

Reputation: 1155

Definitely try and get your hands on the erlang book:
http://www.pragprog.com/titles/jaerlang/programming-erlang

The first section of the book is available free online and would make an excellent companion when you are just learning the language:
http://erlang.org/download/erlang-book-part1.pdf

If you are looking for something more advanced, or wanting to learn tips and tricks about the language/OTP then I would recommend "Erlang in practice" screencasts:
http://www.pragprog.com/screencasts/v-kserl/erlang-in-practice
Although they are $40, they are high quality screencasts and I believe well worth the money.

Upvotes: 7

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