Elixir/Ports and external process wiring: Difference between revisions

Line 6:

My exploration begins while writing a beta-quality library for Elixir to transfer files in the background and monitor progress, using rsync.

{{Aside|text=[[w:rsync|Rsync]] is ~~usually~~ the best tool for file ~~transfer~~, locally or over a network. It can resume incomplete transfers and synchronize directories efficiently, and it's ~~complex enough~~ that ~~nobody is reimplementing~~ it ~~in pure Erlang~~ any time soon.}}

{{Aside|text=[[w:rsync|Rsync]] is the best tool for file transfers, locally or over a network. It can resume incomplete transfers and synchronize directories efficiently, and after almost 30 years of usage it can be trusted to handle all the edge cases.

<br>

BEAM is a fairly unique ecosystem in which the philosophy is to constantly reinvent a rounder wheel: it's common to port external dependencies into native Erlang, but the complexity of rsync and its dependence on a matching remote daemon makes it unlikely that it will be rewritten any time soon, which is why I've decided to wrap external command execution in a library.}}

I was excited to learn how to interface with long-lived external processes—and this project offered more than I hoped for.

@@ Line 6: / Line 6: @@
 My exploration begins while writing a beta-quality library for Elixir to transfer files in the background and monitor progress, using rsync.
-{{Aside|text=[[w:rsync|Rsync]] is usually the best tool for file transfer, locally or over a network.  It can resume incomplete transfers and synchronize directories efficiently, and it's complex enough that nobody is reimplementing it in pure Erlang any time soon.}}
+{{Aside|text=[[w:rsync|Rsync]] is the best tool for file transfers, locally or over a network.  It can resume incomplete transfers and synchronize directories efficiently, and after almost 30 years of usage it can be trusted to handle all the edge cases.
+<br>
+BEAM is a fairly unique ecosystem in which the philosophy is to constantly reinvent a rounder wheel: it's common to port external dependencies into native Erlang, but the complexity of rsync and its dependence on a matching remote daemon makes it unlikely that it will be rewritten any time soon, which is why I've decided to wrap external command execution in a library.}}
 I was excited to learn how to interface with long-lived external processes—and this project offered more than I hoped for.