In November 2009 I set out on a journey to learn Erlang. And not just learn it: I wanted to immerse myself in it, get under it’s skin, feel it, get to think like Erlang. I took it for a test drive, and ended up spending 18 months in Erlang’s company.

This is the story of my trip. Not so much a talk about Erlang itself, but about what I realized on the way about where things are going. The systems that we build are getting increasingly integrated, distributed, and fragile. And becoming so at a disturbing rate when I think about it.

Viewing the world from behind the steering wheel of this old beauty, I’ll take you on a tour of some of the significant issues we’re dealing with in today’s software systems: cloud, multi-core, integration, high availability, and living with the fact that our software isn’t perfect.