Erlang/Python - ZMQ vs Ports, what are the pros and cons?

Questions / Help
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Hello everyone, I am relatively new to erlang. I would like to connect Python and Erlang, both are on the same machine.

I have used ZMQ and Erlang ports. For ZMQ I used the chumak library. Both worked well.

Unfortunately, the pros and cons are not entirely clear to me.

When I use Erlang Ports I can supervise my Python process. If I use ZMQ chumak I can only supervise my ZMQ connection (Erlang process). Is this correct?
Can I combine ZMQ and Erlang ports and for example send heartbeats via ports to supervise the specific Python process? Does that make sense at all?

thanks
frank

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Since you’re talking specifically about Python, I can recommend Pyrlang ( https://pyrlang.github.io/Pyrlang/ ) as a way to make your python processes first class citizens in Erlang. Our team has used it for a few things and it went quite well. Of course you don’t want a bunch of Python erlang processes because they’re heavyweight but the Pyrlang APIs make coordination between the two environments much nicer.

– Ben Scherrey

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I would also recommend Pyrlang.

1 Like
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Thanks for the quick reply. I will definitely take a closer look at Pyrlang .