Re:What Color is Your Function? (2015)
by seabrookmx on Tuesday May 26, 2026 @01:52PM
(#48283203)
Same with the BEAM languages like Erlang, Elixir, and Gleam. Though it still bothers me that they call their green threads "processes".
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:What Color is Your Function? (2015)
by Munksgaard on Tuesday May 26, 2026 @04:16PM
(#48285410)
The terminology in Erlang predates green threads by a decade or so.
That's mostly because BEAM uses an actor-style approach while predating the concept of actors, isn't it? Interesting artefact of history if so
Edit: upon rechecking, apparently that's not exactly right, and Erlang designers learned of actors after designing the language, which makes it all the more interesting
Re:What Color is Your Function? (2015)
by ihumanable on Tuesday May 26, 2026 @03:23PM
(#48284683)
I've spent the last decade in erlang / elixir / OTP. I think a lot of the naming comes from the early use of erlang as effectively an "OS" for telecom switches.
I always joke that BEAM wants to be the operating system.
> I've spent the last decade in erlang / elixir / OTP.
Do you have a blog? I would love a peek into your unique experience.
Actors predate both Erlang and BEAM by significant factor
Re:What Color is Your Function? (2015)
by klas_segeljakt on Wednesday May 27, 2026 @02:19AM
(#48290375)
They are (lightweight) processes since they have no shared memory. Each process has its own stack and heap.
Re:What Color is Your Function? (2015)
by seabrookmx on Thursday May 28, 2026 @12:48PM
(#48311621)
I've never thought about it that way, but that makes sense!