Even a glimpse at these research projects makes it perfectly clear that art and computer linguistics have a lot in common. I am absolutely intrigued.
Thursday, July 19. 2007
Common Sense and Art
Thursday, June 21. 2007
erlang vs. OO
I don't like mondays, ... humming even though it is thursday. What I do like, however, is erlang. This functional programming language has been around since 1987 and is still as up to date as it can get. The most prominent example of software written in erlang probably is ejabberd, the jabber server.
It has been argued that object oriented languages like Java might eventually render functional languages obsolete. Object oriented code resembles the reality where objects interact with each other. Each object has properties and functions altering these properties.
On the other hand there is erlang, which can also resemble real life, only that the interaction is being emphasized. Erlang programs run in processes, commonly known as threads in other languages, which interact using messages. The message passing is built into the language, so that you would not need to write complicated networking code. Now, if we think about the processes resembling objects we'll end up in an object oriented concept - at least vaguely. ( what a comparison 
)
In the end erlang is a functional language mostly consisting of functions, not objects. Although it can be used for much more, in real-life it is used for - optionally distributed and event driven - server applications. In my opinion this is definitely worth a look for the open-minded developer.
A little programming example:
answer() -> 42.
Bed time reading: erlang Publications
