Understanding Erlang Term

There's an Erlang/Elixir myth that tail-recursive functions are much faster than body-recursive functions. In this talk we will first explore how Erlang terms are represented in bit level, and then take a closer look at this myth to understand what really happens with tail-recursive functions vs body-recursive functions. You will understand more about BEAM internals and Erlang's Efficiency Guide.

OBJECTIVES

Give the audience an overview on how Erlang's dynamic typing system work, and how does that produce idiomatic Elixir/Erlang code.

AUDIENCE

Intermediate Elixir/Erlang users who are curious on how things work under the hood.