NIFs and C-Nodes
Choosing between native implemented functions and C-Nodes on the Erlang VM.
- Held
- Event
- Elixir User Group Berlin #40
- Location
- Berlin
Elixir · Erlang · native code
A comparison of two ways to bind native code to Erlang and Elixir, including their different failure boundaries, messaging models, and operational risks.
Presentation
Notes
The examples led to Nodex, an experiment in exposing Node.js modules to Elixir through a separate OS process and Erlang’s distribution protocol. Keeping native work outside the BEAM changes a crash from a VM-wide failure into a node-level failure that supervisors can reason about.