Introducing ERLANG: Getting Started in Functional Programming

If you re new to Erlang, its functional style can seem difficult, but with help from this hands-on introduction, you ll scale the learning curve and discover how enjoyable, powerful, and fun this language can be.

Author Simon St. Laurent shows you how to write simple Erlang programs by teaching you one basic skill at a time. You ll learn about pattern matching, recursion, message passing, process-oriented programming, and establishing pathways for data rather than telling it where to go. By the end of your journey, you ll understand why Erlang is ideal for concurrency and resilience.Get cozy with Erlang s shell, its command line interfaceBecome familiar with Erlang s basic structures by working with numbersDiscover atoms, pattern matching, and guards: the foundations of your program structureDelve into the heart of Erlang processing with recursion, strings, lists, and higher-order functionsCreate processes, send messages among them, and apply pattern matching to incoming messagesStore and manipulate structured data with Erlang Term Storage and the Mnesia databaseLearn about Open Telecom Platform, Erlang s open source libraries and tools"