SlideAware: From Python to Ruby to Erlang

SlideAware has created a slick web-based solution for managing the life cycle of Powerpoint presentations. They started using Python, then they switched to Rails, and finally settled on pure Erlang. Using Erlang, they replaced a combination of Lighttpd + RoR + SQLlite + XMLRpc + Jython + Lucene with the much simpler and highly scalable stack of Yaws + Mnesia + Erlang.

They wrote an interesting article describing their technology choices. Check it out at http://slideaware.typepad.com/slideaware/2007/04/from_python_to_.html.

Announcing ErlyWeb 0.6

I'm pleased to announce the release of ErlyWeb 0.6. This very exciting release contains a new Mnesia driver for ErlyDB created by Matthew Pflueger and a Postgres driver (based on the open source driver from Erlang Consulting) created by Roberto Saccon. Finally, you can use a single database abstraction layer in Erlang to access MySQL, Postrgres and Mnesia without writing a single line of SQL or DBMS-specific logic :)

You can get ErlyWeb 0.6 from the ErlyWeb website or from its Google Code repository. Make sure to check out CHANGELOG.txt for a complete list of changes.

If you have any questions regarding the new drivers, please ask the ErlyWeb Google Group.

An Erlang Pipe

Yahoo Pipes is one of the most innovative apps I've seen: it lets you program data feeds. More specifically, you can use Pipes build programs (called "pipes") that generate output feeds from input feeds by combining, filtering, and manipulating the inputs using different modules from the Pipes IDE. The IDE has a friendly graphical interface, letting you drag, drop and connect different components easily. The IDE is implemented in Javascript, which is impressive.

I couldn't resist playing with Pipes, so I created an Erlang pipe. The Erlang pipe reads the feeds from programming.reddit.com and lambda-the-ultimate.org, combines them, and filters the results by accepting only articles whose contents contain the word 'Erlang'. It then combines the result with the inputs from planeterlang.org.

Check out this pipe at http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=4jVpGgjt2xGttygedrq02Q.

ErlyWeb Cheat Sheet

Brian Olsen has created a very helpful cheat sheet for ErlyWeb. Check it out at http://www.pushon.org/erlyweb/cheat_sheet.html.