Programming Language Atlas

A structured reference to language families, paradigms, and implementations

Erlang

Concurrent, functional, actor-based. First appeared 1986; ml and functional; telecoms, fault-tolerant services.

Record

First appeared1986
FamilyML and functional
Paradigm emphasisConcurrent, functional, actor-based
TypingDynamic, strong
MemoryPer-process GC
ExecutionBytecode VM (BEAM)
Primary domainTelecoms, fault-tolerant services
DesignersJoe Armstrong, Ericsson
Referencehttps://www.erlang.org/
Last verifiednot yet checked against its source by a human

Dates are first public release or publication, not the start of internal development. Colour on the typing and memory tags encodes kind, never rank.

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Influence

Prolog1972Smalltalk-801980Clojure2007Rust2010Elixir2012Gleam2019Unison2020Erlang1986
Figure 1. Erlang in the influence graph: recorded ancestors on the left, languages that record it as an influence on the right. Every node links to its own record. Edges name indexed languages only, so an empty side means no indexed relative, not none at all. Source: languages.json.

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Within the ML and functional

Algebraic data types, exhaustive pattern matching, and inference-driven typing. The source of most type-system features adopted by mainstream languages since 2010.

Language First appeared Typing Memory Execution
ML 1973 Static, strong, inferred Tracing GC Compiled or interpreted
Haskell 1990 Static, strong, inferred Tracing GC AOT compiled
OCaml 1996 Static, strong, inferred Generational GC AOT compiled or bytecode
F# 2005 Static, strong, inferred Tracing GC (.NET) Bytecode + JIT
Elixir 2012 Dynamic, strong Per-process GC Bytecode VM (BEAM)
Gleam 2019 Static, strong, inferred Per-process GC Compiled to Erlang or JavaScript
Unison 2020 Static, strong, inferred Tracing GC Interpreted or compiled

7 other languages in this family, ordered by first appearance. Erlang itself is omitted. Source: languages.json.

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