Re:Managing two million web servers
by rdtsc on Monday March 14, 2016 @02:21AM
(#11281355)
Threads share heap memory. Processes don't.
Erlang processes are very lightweight (only a few KB of memory) yet they have the property of OS processes of keeping their data isolated.
Think about it like an operating system. In most programming platforms today you are essentially programming in Windows 3.1 or DOS. So when the calculator process crashes, it could take down your game or your word processor because they all share their memory space. That is all cool, but it is cool for 1994, not for 2016.
When programming in Elixir/Erlang/LFE, is like moving up the ladder and using a real OS (preemptable execution, processes don't mess with each other's memory, and so on).
Erlang processes are very lightweight (only a few KB of memory) yet they have the property of OS processes of keeping their data isolated.
Think about it like an operating system. In most programming platforms today you are essentially programming in Windows 3.1 or DOS. So when the calculator process crashes, it could take down your game or your word processor because they all share their memory space. That is all cool, but it is cool for 1994, not for 2016.
When programming in Elixir/Erlang/LFE, is like moving up the ladder and using a real OS (preemptable execution, processes don't mess with each other's memory, and so on).