Erlang now has a full-featured standard regex module called re that handles utf8 strings and binaries. It now has a standard module for handling unicode.<p>Yes, regexes aren't part of the language syntax, but then that's not true for, say, python, either. Having to use a library to do regex is not going to be the difference maker in productivity for your app.<p>Besides, while I love regex, I still use them as a last resort. You're going to want to use a real parser for reliable structured text processing.<p>Generally, erlang programmers keep strings in binaries, which are compact. Most modules for handling string type tasks allow you to do this, e.g., the re module understands a unicode_binary type.<p>In 6 months of programming erlang professionally, in a domain dominated by scripting languages like python and ruby, I've certainly never been tempted to bolt over string handling issues. Erlang's flexible distribution, concurrency, and reliability model is just too compelling.<p>To get competitive performance in a reasonable amount of programmer time for concurrent applications in other languages you're limited to the subset of tasks that, say, twisted or tornado makes easy. The program I'm writing now couldn't have been done with either of them.<p>Frankly, if it's the choice between built-in support for regex and built-in primitives for distribution, concurrency, and fault tolerance, there's no question in my mind which is more important.
He compares Erlang's string handling with C... And C sucks at string handling. He should compare Erlang to all the modern languages where strings are a first class citizen. Comparing Erlang's string handling to Java, Python or Ruby might change his mind.
I don't know very much about erlang but I can understand why it has the stigma that it doesn't handle text well as almost every introduction I have seen has said this is the case due to it being created by telecommunication companie[s].<p>However my familiarity is limited and whether this is true or not I cannot comment on, but comparing erlang to C in performing text based operations is probably silly if the other person has an option such as say perl available to them.
Even though he has a good point: strings are lists, and erlang is good at lists — erlang doesn't have native regexps like perl, js, or ruby, nor is the support for them that good.