Comments on: Erlang & Single Assignment: You’re Doing It Wrong

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 08:24:06 +0000

Erlang is for wimps

By: Stephan Schmidt

Stephan Schmidt — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 05:31:15 +0000

“Reusing variables in the same function – Quit it. Really. Erlang is trying to tell you your function is either too long or doing too many things.”

Not only in Erlang, but also in Java:

http://stephan.reposita.org/archives/2008/04/22/all-variables-in-java-must-be-final/

“If you reassign a variable you most probably do something wrong. Iâ€™ll bet if you reassign a variable your method does at least two different things though every method should only do one thing.”

This post on my blog resulted in 12 down votes on Dzone ;-)

Peace
-stephan

By: Alain O'Dea

Alain O'Dea — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 23:01:29 +0000

A concise and definitive statement on the subject was needed. You delivered. Thank you Kevin.

By: Dmitrii Dimandt

Dmitrii Dimandt — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:23:12 +0000

You’ve nailed it in this sentence: “Erlang is trying to tell you your function is either too long or doing too many things.” When I write code in Erlang I realy feel the physiological need to split up functions in order to make them shorter and … well… nicer, so to speak

By: Jared

Jared — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 18:26:52 +0000

I’ve only been in the Erlang world for about a week but I’m amazed by how vitriolic this “debate” has become. Your lucid (and non-apologetic) explanation is highly welcome.

By: Luke Hoersten

Luke Hoersten — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 17:03:38 +0000

Awesome overview. I've modified one of my older posts on why Erlang is a functional language to reflect this idea. Up until now, I was just calling this "syntax" for lack of a better descriptor.