Dabbling in Erlang, part 2: A minimal introduction
Summary
This article provides a minimal, practical introduction to Erlang's core concepts, including single assignment, pattern matching, function clauses, guards, lists, higher-order functions, and list comprehensions. It offers side-by-side comparisons to Ruby and demonstrates how Erlang idioms produce concise, efficient code and safer pattern-driven control flow. The piece also emphasizes the importance of arity and the first-class status of functions, setting the stage for more advanced topics like concurrency in future posts.