Implementing a functional language for highly parallel real time applications

This paper describes a fast, highly portable implementation of the real time, symbolic, declarative programming language Erlang. Erlang has been used by Ericsson for prototyping switching systems and tens of thousands of lines of Erlang code have been written. Projects in which Erlang has been used have demonstrated at least an order of magnitude reduction in the work load of the specification-programming-testing cycle when compared to projects using conventional technology. This paper describes some of the implementation techniques used in a fast and highly portable implementation of Erlang. The authors present measurements of the execution speed of Erlang when used to implement a prototype control system for a PABX