Why Erlang, Axum, X10, Scala, Clojure...

Lately I've been programing in Erlang and I really like it. But recently I became aware that big companies out there are making a huge effort in developing computer languages that try to simplify the complexity of concurrent programing. But this is what erlang is so good at.

The question that comes to my mind is "why not use Erlang?". The first thing I thought was that maybe there is something really broken in erlang that I'm not aware of. But if that was true, then big websites like FaceBook and LastFM wouldn't be adopting erlang with so good results.

Well what is it that Axum (Microsoft), X10 (IBM), Scala (EPFL), Clojure (Rich Hickey) try to give us that we don't already have with erlang. Some of them try to keep the OOP methodology and add some concurrent primitives. Others try to have a concurrency oriented language integrated with their favorite virtual machine or framework.

It's great to see so many people working in new languages. But will this quantity of new comers bring new and refreshing ideas or just scatter the community of developers.

Maybe Erlang developers just had the vision to the future more than 20 years ago (1986) when working for ericsson and now all the other kids of the neighborhood want to have the same toy.

Once again "time will tell".

jEdit syntax highlighting for erlang

Just updated the jedit mode for erlang.

Added some keywords (is_float, is_atom, ...) and constant recognition (?DB_NAME).

Unfortunately blogger doesn't allow me to post the file, so I'll just publish the constant recognition code.


<SEQ_REGEXP HASH_CHAR="?"
TYPE="LABEL"
AT_WORD_START="TRUE"
>\?.\w*</SEQ_REGEXP>


PS: Also there is no way to post code without having to use some "tricks". I'm annoyed.

The world is changing

Today something really different happened.
For the first time, a black person is the most powerful man of the western world. Barack Obama became president of the USA.
I'm glad this came to be true. But now I'm curious how the Americans and the rest of the world will react.

Is this the ignition of a chain reaction?

Pylons more Alpha then Beta

For the last couple of days I've been trying out pylons web framework (v0.97).

I decided to followed the official pylons book. At first I found some small glitches but I managed to work them around quite easily. This gave me more confidence that I was ready for pylons and pylons was ready for me. Since pylons and the book are still in Beta version I expected some small problems, but at after a wile the fixes were not so simple and I was wishing that something started to work without needing fixes.

I like the pylons concept of not reinventing the wheel, but after this experience I know that I can't use it to build a serious and complex web application. At least for now.

Next I'll be trying django.

It’s time to make time

Some inspiring articles:

Make time

Achieve any Goal

Portuguese one

I made it, therefore I exist !

Life and Death

Yesterday lunch was quite an experience. Me and My colleges went to the mall were we could feed cheap and fast. Nothing special until we noticed that there were some fireman trying to reanimate a guy.
What choked me most, was the people eating while that guy was dying. I didn't know how to react. What could I do? Also the mall security was trying to hide the morbid scene piling up some tables and chairs around the fireman to avoid chocking the people I think.
In the end the guy died just next to was and it was like nothing had append. No one knew him, no one cared.
What strange world we live in...

Brain Network

Last week I attended to the BarCampFCT. It was very informal and as a result there was a more intimate atmosphere. It was quite different from the Takeoff2008.

It was very interactive and every one had to create a concept and make a presentation (Half Baked). Aldo no golden business opportunity came up, it reveal a great creative potential.

The usual suspects were all present.

I had to leave early and didn't assist to the ignite presentations. (shame on me)

In conclusion, these kind of events are a good brain stimulation that I don't want to miss.