Hello,
I read that nice thread about Erlang. Well, congratulations, you found
a good tool for the job. Some questions:
-Erlang does have a distributed database, but does it also have a
distributed filesystem? Any ideas how this could be accomplished with
Erlang or Lisp? Of course you could always use the database as your
filesystem but I think for some applications this would not be ideal.
Once you have your distributed filesystem you could even build your own
Google-like search engine. Just connect 100K computers together :)
-About writing a Lisp/Scheme with the capabilities of Erlang: Maybe it
would be easier the other way round. Just change the syntax of Erlang
to lisp syntax.
Thanks for any feedback or comments.
Thelifter
>>>>> "thelifter" == thelifter <·········@gmx.net> writes:
thelifter> -Erlang does have a distributed database, but does it also
thelifter> have a distributed filesystem?
No, Erlang only have access function for whatever filesystems you are
running on, unlike the Mnesia database which is an native Erlang
application.
thelifter> Any ideas how this could be accomplished with Erlang or
thelifter> Lisp?
The main problem is probably in coming up with a distrbution model
rather than deciding what language to write it in.
thelifter> -About writing a Lisp/Scheme with the capabilities of
thelifter> Erlang: Maybe it would be easier the other way round. Just
thelifter> change the syntax of Erlang to lisp syntax.
Well, there is a lot more to at least Common Lisp than Erlang has to
offer, including:
- more types (eg in Erlang a string is just a list of characters)
- real structs (Erlang structs is just tuples and struct
creation and access is by complier magic, not available in
the REPL)
- packages (Erlang is rather strict about one module = one file and
you cannot set the current module in any way)
- object system (Erlang has no such thing, you obviously can
roll your own but it is not going to make you happy)
- macros (Erlang has a macro facility but it appears closer to
C macros in power than to Lisp macros)
I for one would not use Erlang more, just because it acquired a nicer
syntax.
------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------
Christian Lynbech | christian ··@ defun #\. dk
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Hit the philistines three times over the head with the Elisp reference manual.
- ·······@hal.com (Michael A. Petonic)