By puredanger
via tonyarcieri.org
Published: Aug 15 2008 / 12:14
Erlang programmers are awfully vocal about the idea of single assignment: unlike virtually every other language on the planet where you are free to bind values to the same identifier over and over again, in Erlang you can do it once and only once. However, if you ask an Erlang programmer why multiple assignment is a bad thing you’re unlikely to get a straight answer.
Comments
dglasser replied ago:
A good post, but I think the phrase "cargo cult" has become a stupid (and in this case misused) cliche in the programming world.
AlainODea replied ago:
This article is poorly researched and touches only the surface of a recent heated debate on erlang-questions.
Kevin Smith summarizes the really key points on why Single Assignment is used in Erlang on his blog:
http://weblog.hypotheticalabs.com/?p=281
If single assignment is a problem for you, then you are not leveraging Erlang properly.
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