alt Hacker NewsI just learned Erlang this year and I love the syntax. Ending expressions with periods took getting used to, but capital first letters distinguishing variables, non-rebindable variables, semicolons between function clauses, a lack of boilerplate (defmodule et al), a fraction of end keywords, commas separating expression, ... all make for a very fun to use and ergonomic language, IMO.
I haven't tried Gleam yet, though. I'm interested in the focus on simplicity but a little wary because I understand they sacrificed niceties to minimize the language footprint, e.g., pattern matching in function heads. I intend to give it a shot the next time I'm greenfielding something.
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I was fortunate enough to use Erlang professionally for a couple of years. I agree: the syntax is quite comfortable.
I'm the same. I thought I was an oddball because so many people seemed to prefer Elixir but I like Erlang and its syntax. I wish I had more chances to use it at work but so far it's just been for hobby projects or playing with.
Erlang is my favorite functional language out of all the ones I've tried. The matchers, guards, etc are all done very well. But I don't like functional. I used to think it was cool, gave it a real chance using Erlang for years, and eventually decided it's not a good fit for many use cases. Like at some point the neatness of doing all loops as recursion wears off and it's just tiring. It's not like CS algo homework, and even there you often want DP/memoization.
Edit: pure* functional