The Howdy Glossary

Erlang, developed by Ericsson in the late 1980s, was originally intended for telecommunications applications but has since evolved into a general-purpose concurrent programming language. It is particularly well-suited for distributed, fault-tolerant systems due to its unique features such as lightweight processes for concurrency and message passing for communication. These features enable Erlang to handle large-scale, real-time systems with high availability requirements efficiently.

One of Erlang's standout characteristics is its built-in support for concurrency through lightweight processes that communicate via message passing rather than shared data. This design simplifies the creation of distributed systems capable of running on multiple cores and across different machines. Additionally, Erlang incorporates soft error recovery mechanisms that allow the system to continue operating despite hardware failures or software bugs, making it highly suitable for critical infrastructure projects where downtime can be costly or dangerous.

In comparison to its main competitors like Akka and Go, Erlang offers distinctive advantages through its native support for lightweight processes and message passing. While these competitors provide similar functionalities for building scalable, fault-tolerant systems—Akka with actor-based concurrency models and Go with goroutines and channels—Erlang's long-standing focus on high availability in telecommunications has cemented its reputation in this domain. Its robust design choices make it particularly attractive for developers working on real-time, large-scale systems requiring high reliability and uptime.