CheSSH is a multiplayer distributed game of chess over SSH - let's take a quick look before diving into Elixir!
[[https://chessh.linux.usu.edu]]
* Elixir - What You Need
Elixir is a self-proclaimed "dynamic, functional language for building scalable and maintainable applications".
** Basic Data Types
1.~int~'s, ~bool~'s, ~string~'s are all here
+ ~1~, ~true~, ~"Hello"~
2. Atoms: prefixed with ":" are named constants whose name is their value, similar to symbols in LISP
+ ~:x~, ~:three~
4. Maps: regular key-value store; keys can be literally anything, including other maps
+ ~%{%{a: 1}: 2, %{a: 2}: :an_atom}~
5. Lists: lists are singly-linked elements of "stuff"
+ ~[1,2,3]~, ~[]~, ~[1, [2, :three, %{}]]~
6. Tuples: tuples are fixed-size collections of "stuff"
+ ~{1,2,3}~, ~{1, {2, 3}}~
** Pattern Matching
The match operator "=" does not mean its convential meaning of assignment, but instead an assertion of equivalence. This gives way to a unique
feature of Elixir - pattern matching (similar to that found in Rust's ~match~ or Scala's ~case~).
With pattern matching we can access data from complex structures declaratively.
For example:
#+BEGIN_SRC elixir
[head | tail] = [1,2,3]
%{a: a_value} = %{a: 10}
{:ok, result} = {:ok, 2}
[head, tail, a_value, result]
#+END_SRC
And will raise an exception when the pattern cannot match:
#+BEGIN_SRC elixir
%{a: a_value} = %{b: 10}
#+END_SRC
*** Error Handling
Functions that can error will typically return a two-tuple, the first element of which is either the atom ~:ok~ or ~:error~, and the second is the
error info or value.
For many scenarios, the fact that a failed pattern match raises an exception is enough information to know we shouldn't execute further.
#+BEGIN_SRC elixir
defmodule Sequences do
def fib(n) when n < 0, do: {:error, :too_small}
def fib(n) when n <= 1, do: {:ok, n}
def fib(n) when n > 1 do
{:ok, n1} = fib(n-1)
{:ok, n2} = fib(n-2)
{:ok, n1 + n2}
end
end
{:ok, f10} = Sequences.fib(10)
{:ok, fn1} = Sequences.fib(-1)
IO.puts(fn1)
#+END_SRC
But sometimes we do want to capture that error information! In this case, we use ~case~!
#+BEGIN_SRC elixir
case Sequences.fib(-1) do
{:ok, val} -> val
{:error, err} ->
IO.puts("Ran into :error #{inspect(err)}")
0
end
#+END_SRC
** Piping
Elixir's pipe operator ~|>~ allows programmers to easily write statements as a composition of functions. It simply takes the value of the
function on the left, and passes it as the first argument to the function on the right.
For example, to find the length of the longest string in a list of strings:
#+BEGIN_SRC elixir
["Hello, world", "Another string", "Where are all these strings coming from"]
|> Enum.map(&String.length/1)
|> Enum.max()
#+END_SRC
** Meta-programming
Akin to my favorite language of all time, LISP, Elixir provides a way to interact directly with code as data (and thus the AST) via a powerful macro system.
However, they are not as elegant, and for that reason, Chris McCord suggests in his book "Metaprogramming Elixir":
#+BEGIN_QUOTE
Rule 1 : Don't Write Macros
#+END_QUOTE
The main reasoning is that it becomes difficult to debug, and hides too much from the user. These are fine trade-offs when you're working alone.
*** when-prime the functional way
#+BEGIN_SRC elixir
defmodule Prime do
def is_prime(2), do: true
def is_prime(n) when rem(n, 2) == 0 or n <= 1, do: false
def is_prime(n) do
is_prime_helper(n, 3)
end
defp is_prime_helper(n, i) when i * i > n, do: true
defp is_prime_helper(n, i) when rem(n, i) == 0, do: false
defp is_prime_helper(n, i) do
is_prime_helper(n, i + 2)
end
end
#+END_SRC
#+BEGIN_SRC elixir
when_prime_do = fn n, when_true, when_false ->
if Prime.is_prime(n) do
when_true.()
else
when_false.()
end
end
when_prime_do.(10, fn -> "10 is prime" end, fn -> "10 is not prime" end)
#+END_SRC
*** when-prime the metaprogramming way
#+BEGIN_SRC elixir
defmodule When do
defmacro prime(n, do: true_body, else: false_body) do
quote do
if Prime.is_prime(unquote(n)), do: unquote(true_body), else: unquote(false_body)
end
end
end
require When
When.prime 10, do: "10 is prime", else: "10 is not prime"
#+END_SRC
*** Real-world use-case: ~use~
One such use case for macros (besides those covered previously in my LISP presentation) is to emulate module "inheritance" to share functions.
We can think of a module in Elixir as a set of functions. Then, we can perform unions of modules by the ~use~ macros.
Additionally, with ~behaviours~ we can define callbacks to implement in each unioned module.
#+BEGIN_SRC elixir
defmodule Animal do
@callback noise() :: String.t()
defmacro __using__(_opts) do
quote do
@behaviour Animal
def speak() do
IO.puts("#{__MODULE__} says #{noise()}")
end
end
end
end
defmodule Dog do
use Animal
def noise() do
"Bark"
end
end
defmodule Cat do
use Animal
def noise() do
"Meow"
end
end
Cat.speak()
Dog.speak()
#+END_SRC
* Elixir - Concurrency
Elixir is built on top of (and completely interoperable with) Erlang - a language developed to build massively fault-tolerant systems in the 80's
for large telephone exchanges with hundreds of thousands of users.
You can imagine (if you look past the many problems with this statement), Elixir and Erlang to be analogous to Python and C, respectively - but
without the massive performance penalty.
** The BEAM
The BEAM powers Elixir's concurrency magic; by running a VM executing Erlang bytecode that holds one OS thread per core,
and a separate process scheduler (and queue) on each.
Imagine an army of little goblins, and you give each a todo list. The goblins then go complete the tasks in the order best
suited for them, and have the added benefit that they can talk to each other.
** Concurrency - Demo!
Here we will open up two terminals: one running an Elixir REPL on my machine, and another to SSH into my android:
With a brief quick exploration into concurrency with Elixir, we can now explore the architecture of CheSSH,
and the hardware cluster it runs on:
[[./pis.jpeg]]
** Erlang SSH Module - (maybe) building a tic tac toe game!
So much networking stuff is built on top of Erlang that its standard library - OTP - has implementations for tons of stuff you'd regularly reach for a library to help; ssh, snmp,
ftp, are all built in "OTP Applications".
It requires a little bit of time with headaches, but the docs are generally pretty good (with occasional source code browsing): [[https://www.erlang.org/doc/man/ssh.html]]
** Architecture
[[./architecture.png]]
** Lessons Learned
1. Use Kubernetes (~buildscripts~ is so horribly janky it's actually funny)
