Networking with the BEAM: Advantages and Implementation Techniques

Andrea Leopardi gives an informative talk on why the BEAM (Erlang's virtual machine) is one of the best fits for networking applications, especially when compared to lower-level languages like Rust or Go. The talk is structured into two main parts. Initially, it explains why the BEAM architecture—characterized by lightweight processes, immutability, and message passing—makes it a natural fit for networking tasks, drawing analogies with real-world processes and communication. The second part shifts focus to practical applications, specifically the use of the BEAM to write TCP applications. Leopardi explains how to handle TCP sockets and data effectively using the BEAM, discusses the benefits of acceptor pools and supervision trees for building scalable and fault-tolerant TCP servers, and highlights the use of `gen_statem` behavior for reliable TCP clients. The talk also covers patterns and techniques for writing servers and clients, including reconnect strategies and pooling mechanisms. Emphasis is placed on the practicalities of networking in environments supported by the BEAM, touching upon dynamic supervisors, exceptional back-off strategies, and leveraging `gen_statem` for client state management.