Appendix B. On Erlang’s Syntax

Many newcomers to Erlang manage to understand the syntax and program around it without ever getting comfortable with it. I’ve read and heard many complaints regarding the syntax and the “ant turd tokens” (a subjectively funny way to refer to ,, ;, and .), how annoying it is, and so on.

Erlang draws its syntax from Prolog. While this gives a reason for the current state of things, it doesn’t magically make people like the syntax. I don’t expect anyone to respond to this by saying, “Oh, it’s Prolog, I get it. Makes complete sense!” As such, I’ll suggest three ways to read Erlang code to possibly make it easier to understand.

The Template

The template way is my personal favorite. To understand it, you must first get rid ...

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