A concurrent functional language for large industrial real-time systems by Armstrong, Williams and Virding of Ellemtel, Sweden.
Erlang is untyped. It has pattern matching syntax, recursion equations, explicit concurrency, asynchronous message passing and is relatively free from side-effects. It supports transparent cross-platform distribution. It has primitives for detecting run-time errors, real-time garbage collection, modules, dynamic code replacement (change code in a continuously running real-time system) and a foreign language interface.
An unsupported free version is available (subject to a non-commercial licence). Commercial versions with support are available from Erlang Systems AB. An interpreter in SICStus Prolog and compilers in C and Erlang are available for several Unix platforms.
MORE. Information. E-mail: <erlang@erix.ericsson.se>.
[Erlang - "Concurrent Programming in Erlang", J. Armstrong, M. & Williams R. Virding, Prentice Hall, 1993. ISBN 13-285792-8.]
(24 Oct 1994)