Programming language: Erlang / OTP 24.0 gets a new JIT compiler for more performance

Exactly twelve months after the release of the last major version 23.0, the development team at the Swedish telecommunications and network equipment manufacturer Ericsson made version 24.0 of Erlang / OTP (Open Telecom Platform) available. As usual, the update includes the new features of the programming language as well as the associated runtime environment and the program library.

JIT compiler BeamAsm promises more speed

Among the numerous innovations affecting the compiler infrastructure, the new JIT (Just In Time) compiler BeamAsm should be highlighted, which, according to the announcement in the release notes, should deliver significant increases in performance for many applications. BeamAsm is activated by default on the majority of all x86-64-bit platforms that offer a C ++ compiler that can handle the C ++ 17 standard. With the command erlang:system_info(emu_flavor) Developers can ensure that a JIT-compatible emulator is running. Warning and error messages from the compiler should be more meaningful in Erlang / OTP 24: In addition to the line numbers, they now also list the relevant columns. In addition, generators give in List / Binary Comprehensions {bad_generator,Generator} in the event that the generator is not of the correct type. A comparable exception {bad_filter,Filter}, is triggered when a filter is not evaluated as a Boolean value. Get an overview of other important innovations the release notes for the new major version together. The complete list of all improvements and new features is provided the read-me file for downloading Erlang / OTP 24.0.

From the telephone to the web application

The Erlang language, which has been in development since 1986, was originally developed by Ericsson for programming telephony applications. Since 1998 it has been open source under its own license. The change to the Apache Public License 2.0 did not take place until 2015 with the release of version 18. Erlang is used, among other things, in the configuration management software Chef and the distributed database Riak. In the meantime, companies such as Cisco and WhatsApp also rely on Erlang, which together with Ericsson founded the non-profit organization Erlang Ecosystem Foundation (EEF) in 2019. This should be dedicated to promoting the programming languages ​​Erlang, Elixir, LFE (Lisp Flavored Erlang) and other techniques based on the virtual machine BEAM, which is relevant in the Erlang environment. (map)