+++
date = "2017-03-26T00:00:00+01:00"
title = "The elephant in the room"

+++

Have you ever tried telling someone why they should use
Erlang? You boast the smaller code size, the auto healing
mechanisms, the distribution and they seem really excited.
They wonder why they never heard about Erlang before. And
then you show them what the code looks like. All excitement
goes away. The smiles disappear. Their face starts
becoming really serious.

You lost them. You know you lost them. They comment on the
syntax, or perhaps you do, already admitting defeat. It's
unlike anything they have ever used before. And they will
most likely end up not using it.

What about people who already know what the syntax looks
like? As soon as you mention Erlang, the topic of the syntax
comes in. It's like nothing else matters.

Perhaps the topic of syntax didn't come up. But they're
still not going to try Erlang because of it.

You're probably not having these kinds of interactions at
Erlang conferences. This doesn't happen with people who are
already somewhat interested in, or need, the features that
Erlang provides. With them the syntax is at worst a minor
inconvenience.

This happens because most developers are familiar with
syntaxes that look nothing like Erlang. To be clear, I
include language features and other concepts like objects
as part of "syntax" here. Familiarity is a very important
factor to drive adoption.

You can see an example of that in the Elixir world, where
the majority of people come from Ruby or already knew and
liked Ruby. The 2016 survey tells us that 59% of Elixir
developers were using Ruby primarily before. That's in
large part because of the syntax. They will deny it of
course and find other reasons. And yet, we don't see such
a strong adoption of Erlang from Ruby developers, before
or after Elixir appeared.

Side note: have you ever wondered why the Elixir community
is, I quote, much friendlier than the Ruby community?
Despite having much of the same people?

Before we continue, let me be clear. I love the Erlang
syntax. It is simple and explicit. It is powerful, especially
when dealing with binary data. It has very few quirks.
It has little to no ambiguity. It's great. Except for
persuading people to use it.

Over the years I have been writing Erlang, I have seen
very few people point out that the syntax slows down
adoption. We have no problem with it, so why would others?
At the same time, people coming to Erlang come to solve
a real problem they're having, so the syntax is fairly
secondary. Even if they hate it at first, they know they
can solve their problems despite the syntax.

You don't build a popular product or language by solving
people's problems though. In general you end up solving
some problems and creating new problems. No, you build
a popular product by *convincing people to use it*. And
you make them stay with your product by making them
*commit* to using it.

Take MongoDB for example. It didn't become popular by
working, or even by being practical. It wasn't performing
its primary function and was losing people's data. That
didn't stop it from becoming popular. Smart people would
knowingly use a database that was losing data. Think about
that for a minute.

MongoDB of course had a huge marketing machine, and they
focused on that. They helped organize many meetups all
over the world, complete with various swag items given
for free, including a small handbook about MongoDB. All
people had to do was show up.

They didn't go tell people to look at all the weaknesses
their product had. They focused on the strengths. On
what would convince people to try it. They would go
to meetups, discuss with others, commit to try it (or
try it at meetups directly), and by doing so sell MongoDB
to themselves.

How do we get people to meetups though? That'd be the
first step: you need to *catch their attention*.
I believe MongoDB did this using benchmark results.
Ironic isn't it? MongoDB gets fast benchmark results
because they lose data, and this gets everyone to buy
into the product.

The key points to remember about this are:

* catch people's attention
* show your product's strengths
* make people take a commitment

Once they commit to something, you win. Everyone will not
end up ultimately using your product of course, but it's
at the very least become a consideration. It's on their
mind. Their resolve will be stronger when they ultimately
try it and inevitably run into issues.

Erlang's syntax is a weakness. Almost nobody looks at the
Erlang syntax and falls in love with it at first sight.
No, it takes time to learn it and understand how good it
is. You need to sell Erlang to people without showing
the Erlang syntax. If you do show it, then you need to
hide the parts that feel alien. Function calls are OK.
Recursion, not so much. Maps are OK. Records, not.

Avoiding code is not always possible when you try
to sell it, especially to developers. You can however
prepare them to accept the alien syntax by admitting
that the syntax is not perfect before you show it.
You can do this while praising it at the same time.
For example, "the syntax is a little out there, but
it matches the concepts perfectly, it will all make
sense when you start learning".

This might not be the best introduction. Someone will
need to A/B test it to find the one that gives the
best results. But that should give you ideas.

When something terrible happens, mentioning that this
isn't the end of the world *before* you tell others what
happened will soften their reaction. When someone
breaks your favorite item and cries over it calling
themselves stupid, it's harder to get mad at them,
compared to the same event with no emotional reaction.

Our behavior is largely dependent on what's at the
top of our mind, so it's up to you to take advantage
of this to make your case in the best conditions.

Next time you try to make someone use Erlang, remember
that you should aim for getting a spoken commitment
out of them, if possible before you show the syntax.
If that's not possible, then prepare them to accept
the flaws or the weirdness before they see them.
