


Session Name: Why Erlang?
Speaker(s): Henning Diedrich
Company Name(s): Eonblast Corporation
Track / Format: Programming
Overview: Why am I hearing more and more about Erlang these days? What are EA, Blizzard, Zynga and Wooga using this functional programming language for? Is it for me, too? Faster implementation, way better maintenance, 4 times shorter code: this talk presents the case for Erlang as server language, where it shines, how it looks, what caveats there are and how to get started fast. The lecture looks at real world examples, details the differences between a Java / C# / C++ and an Erlang game server architecture, and between Erlang's Actor Model and OO. Tutorial style, a minimal Erlang program is explained to show Erlang's main features in action: microprocesses, actors, atoms, immutable variables, message passing and pattern matching. Anyone passionate about programming will be surfing the web for more before the presentation is over. The theory and advantages of each of the concepts are touched upon, a list of good matches is given, such as Redis and MySQL, and the new VoltDB driver for Erlang is presented.

GDC Online 2012

Henning Diedrich

Eonblast Corporation

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