Languages, and about languages, on the BEAM

Contents

• Languages, and about languages, on the BEAM
  • Overview
  • Languages
  • About Languages
  • Erlang and Types

Overview

This document is intended to list (a) languages implemented to run on the BEAM, the Erlang virtual machine, and (b) documents (articles & presentations) about the hows and whys of writing languages to run on the BEAM.

For the moment, and for want of a better name, I call such languages “BEAM languages” (although I have heard that there are other Erlang VMs, …).

I would like the document to be comprehensive, or at least “representative”. If I have missed a BEAM language, some noteworthy discussion about a BEAM language, or documentation about implementing languages targetting the BEAM, please let me know through the usual channels (issues, forks, PRs, tweets, emails, etc.).

Thank you.

Languages

Erlang itself, then the Lisp-influenced languages, then the rest in alphabetical order.

Erlang

• http://www.erlang.org/
• https://github.com/erlang/otp

Lisps

lfe (2008+)

• http://lfe.io/
• https://github.com/rvirding/lfe

joxa (2011+)

• http://joxa.org/
• https://github.com/joxa/joxa
• https://joxa.readthedocs.org/

Differences Between Joxa and LFE

• Eric Merritt
• 2012/02/21
• http://blog.ericbmerritt.com/2012/02/21/differences-between-joxa-and-lfe.html

Joxa: A Full Featured Lisp on the Erlang VM

• Eric Merritt
• 2012/08/22
• https://vimeo.com/49116180

‘the concurrent schemer’ (2013+)

• http://the-concurrent-schemer.github.io/scm-doc/
• https://github.com/the-concurrent-schemer/scm

clojerl (2015+)

clojerl - Clojure for the Erlang VM

• http://clojerl.org/
• http://try.clojerl.online/
• https://github.com/jfacorro/clojerl

etc

alpaca (2016+)

• https://github.com/alpaca-lang/alpaca

efene (2009+)

• http://efene.org/
• https://github.com/efene/efene

elchemy (2017+)

An Elm syntax front-end for Elixir (i.e., converts Elm-style input language into Elixir source code).

• https://github.com/wende/elchemy

elixir (2011+)

• http://elixir-lang.org/
• https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir

eml (2012)

“eml - Erlang flavored by Some ML”

• https://github.com/etnt/eml

ephp (2013+)

An erlang interpreter for PHP

• https://github.com/bragful/ephp

Presumably as used by Bragful — “A resilient and scalable PHP”.

erl2 (2012)

• https://github.com/joearms/erl2

Announcement and ensuing discussion on erlang-questions

http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-questions/2012-February/064687.html

“A Few Improvements to Erlang” (EUC 2012)

http://www.erlang-factory.com/conference/ErlangUserConference2012/speakers/joearmstrong

A blog post about the above presentation in Chinese

http://www.cnblogs.com/me-sa/archive/2012/06/06/2538941.html

erlog (2008+)

• https://github.com/rvirding/erlog

Backtracking in Erlang, part 1 - control

• Robert Virding
• 2009/03/18
• http://rvirding.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/backtracking-in-erlang-part-1-control.html

erlyjs (2008-2013?)

The original repo (on Google Code) no longer exists, but there are several forks, e.g.:

• https://github.com/KlausTrainer/erlyjs

A couple of blog posts from 2008 (the second is by the original developer of erlyjs):

ErlyJS: JavaScript on Erlang

http://ajaxian.com/archives/erlyjs-javascript-on-erlang

ErlyJS - translating Javascript to Erlang

http://rsaccon.blogspot.co.uk/2008/02/erlyjs-translating-javascript-to-erlang.html

fez (2017+)

fez - fsharp to core erlang compiler experiment

• https://github.com/kjnilsson/fez

haskerl et al. (1993-2014?)

• https://github.com/etnt/Haskerl

The Haskerl Index

http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~partain/haskerl.html

Yhc/Erlang/Proof of concept

https://wiki.haskell.org/Yhc/Erlang/Proof_of_concept

idris-erlang (2014-15)

• https://github.com/lenary/idris-erlang

This is an Idris package (therefore requiring Haskell and Idris) which compiles Idris source code into erlang source code.

interfix (2015)

• https://github.com/marianoguerra/interfix

kapok (2015+)

• https://github.com/kapok-lang/kapok

luerl (2012+)

• https://github.com/rvirding/luerl

purerl (2016+)

Erlang backend for PureScript

• https://github.com/purerl/purescript

Introducing PureScript Erlang

http://nwolverson.uk/devlog/2016/08/01/introducing-purescript-erlang.html

reia (-2011)

• http://reia-lang.org/
• https://github.com/tarcieri/reia

xerl (2013)

• https://github.com/extend/xerl

Five web articles in 2013 starting with:

• 2013/01/30
• “Xerl: empty modules”
• http://ninenines.eu/articles/xerl-0.1-empty-modules/

About Languages

Erlang, LFE, Joxa and Elixir: Established and Emerging Languages in the Erlang Ecosystem

(slides)

• Brian Troutwine
• 2014/07/23
• http://www.slideshare.net/BrianTroutwine1/erlang-lfe-elixir-and-joxa-oscon-2014

Implementing Languages on the BEAM (1)

(video)

• Robert Virding
• 2014/10/29 (London Erlang UG)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm0mbQbc9Kc

Implementing Languages on the BEAM (2)

(slides & video)

• Robert Virding
• 2014/11/04 (Codemesh 2014)
• http://www.codemesh.io/codemesh2014/robert-virding

Create Your Own Language: How to implement a language on top of Erlang Virtual Machine (BEAM)

(slides)

• Hamidreza Soleimani
• 2015/08/06
• https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9D6BzMBVYONR0ZzV3pTb3N4bms/view?pli=1

Eric Merritt, Erlang and distributed systems expert, gives his views on BEAM languages, Hindley–Milner type systems and new technologies

(article/interview, with links to podcast & video)

• Federico Carrone
• 2015/08/11
• https://medium.com/this-is-not-a-monad-tutorial/eric-merritt-erlang-and-distributed-systems-expert-gives-his-views-on-beam-languages-hindley-a09b15f53a2f

Erlang and Types

These first two papers are linked from Philip Wadler’s erlang page: http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/wadler/topics/erlang.html

A practical subtyping system for Erlang

(paper)

• Simon Marlow & Philip Wadler
• 1997
• http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/wadler/papers/erlang/erlang.pdf

The great type hope

(slides)

• Philip Wadler
• 2002
• http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/wadler/papers/erlang/erlang-slides.pdf

Om: Erlang System F-Omega (Erlang with Types Proposal)

• Namdak Tonpa
• 2013
• https://github.com/5HT/om