Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

Week 6

Comments on 7 languages in 7 weeks:

 

Erlang

 

Erlangs main strength is in concurrent programming and fault tolerance. It was created by Joe Armstrong in 1986. The language is mature and is used to make reliable software. It uses the actor model for concurrency. You can see some similarities between Erlang and Prolog, especially in the syntax. You also see it in the pattern matching as well.  Day one was not too bad, I was able to get through the section alright because of the similarities between it and prolog.

 

Day 1 Self-Study

1)      Erlang official site - http://www.erlang.org/

2)      Function library - http://www.erlang.org/doc/reference_manual/functions.html

3)      OTP Library - http://www.erlang.org/doc/

 

The next section went into control structures, then higher-order functions and pattern matching to get deeper into functional programming and manipulating lists.

 

The last section shows a few ways to make light weight Erlang processes that will receive and respond to messages. We are also shown how we can monitor the processes for a failure and how to revive them.

 

Overall, Erlang is one of the most reliable languages. It is lightweight. The libraries can help build monitored, keep-alive processes, link to databases, and build distributed applications. Erlangs philosophy is “let it crash”.

 

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Comments on Designing for Emotion:

 

I agree that an interface must be functional, reliable, and usable. The interface must be easy to use, do what I want, and not crash. If any of those three things go wrong, I will not use that application or go back to that website.

 

When the author started talking about Wufoo, I completely agree. There is a huge emotional aspect when I’m trying to pick a product to use. If you are going to make it fun, easy, and do what I want, I will use it. It really is about having a pleasurable experience.

 

I talk to my girlfriend about this all the time. I ask her constantly, why does she keep going back to a certain iPhone app? An example is Pinterest. She talks about how visually stimulating it is and how easy it is to use. There are other applications like it, but the way this application is presented to the user, they just keep coming back.

 

An example of what I just talked about above, is given in the book as well but for Apple instead. I agree Apple is known for its focused, aesthetically pleasing, and usable products. They have a clean and elegant design. And this is exactly why people keep coming back to it.

 

I truly believe that there will always be competition amongst different products, but the product that will always win will be the one who can have the most aesthetically pleasing interface that is simple and easy to use.

I find that funny when the author talks about the VW Beetle. My mother used to always talk about how cars have faces.

 

I never really thought about the importance of a persona in a website. However, it is true, and it wasn’t something that I noticed until it was pointed out to me while reading this section. Good websites will present a personality beyond the computer screen.

 

Later, the author talks about the interface revisions made on Twitter and Facebook. It was true, most people seemed very happy with the option to change to Twitter’s new interface. On the opposite end, people seemed unhappy with Facebook’s revision since it was forced upon the users instead of giving them the option. It’s amazing what a huge effect it can have by just offering the option to the user to change something, instead of forcing it upon them. It really made the user feel like they had some say, or some power in the decision.

 

Going through this book, I am just amazed at all the products he is talking about. I would say about 80% of all the websites or services he mentioned, I use! (Twitter, Facebook, Apple products, Dropbox, Mint, Tapbot, just to name a few)

 

I did not know Flickr went down. The way they handled the situation was awesome!