> But that doesn't mean that I think it's the only solution--the
> universal language. There are always going to be areas where other
> tools excel.

> One of those areas is concurrent programming. As the world moves to
> multi-core processors, and as we start to write applications
> distributed across intra- and internets, we need to find better ways
> to exploit all this extra power. If you've ever tried to write
> concurrent programs in Java, or even Ruby, you know the challenges.

> Erlang is designed from the ground up to help programmers create
> highly concurrently (read thousands or processes), highly reliable
> (read 99.99999% uptime) applications. It's a real world language--it
> is used to write telephone switches, banking applications, trading
> systems...you name it.

> I like it for that reason. I also like it because it's different--
> very different. It makes me think about problems in a totally
> different way.

> We were lucky to get Joe Armstrong, one of the inventors of Erlang,
> to write our latest beta book, Programming Erlang.

> The book isn't being officially announced until next week, but I
> thought the Ruby community might appreciate an early look.

>       http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/titles/jaerlang/

> Cheers

> Dave