Less noise with OTP

At Syncpup, we’re working on our first product and while we test things out with early adopters, we’ve noticed a side-effect of choosing Erlang/OTP.

Before OTP, beta products and prototypes shipped with the usual unproven design decisions, coupled with the bugs that quick development typically yields.

This wasn’t out of the ordinary, but something got our attention when our early ideas were all written in Erlang:

OTP systems, even ones that are beta products and prototypes, seem to ship with less errors allowing user feedback as it concerns design to take center stage.

This has been a revalation, as buggy prototypes can hide many design issues creating false positives and false negatives wherever they pop up.

One of the original goals of the language was the ability to prototype with speed. While Ruby may be slicker for fast coding, Erlang’s immutable variables, pattern matching, and process isolation via message passing all pitch in for robust systems that tote fewer bugs. The sum of which means faster development cycles, quick shipping, and clear feedback from early adopters.