tutrial

tut.erl

run() ->
  Pid = spawn(fun ping/0),
  Pid ! self(),
  receive
    pong -> ok
  end.
ping() ->
  receive
    From -> From ! pong
  end.

|23:18:11| (ismarc) ok, so, starting at the beginning, we have two functions defined, run() and ping()
|23:18:30| (ismarc) spawn takes a function that you want to be spawned in another process
|23:19:11| (ismarc) The Pid of the spawned process is stored
|23:19:43| (ismarc) it then sends the Pid to itself in the initial process
|23:19:48| (ismarc) you could send any message here
|23:20:03| (ismarc) The ping function receives a message (any message)
|23:20:33| (ismarc) err, I explained it backwards
|23:20:43| (ismarc) it sends its own Pid to the Pid it spawned
|23:21:06| (ismarc) the ping function receives the Pid of the initial process and sends the message pong to it
|23:21:30| (ismarc) the original process went into receive mode and if it receives a message back of pong, it results in ok

http://www.erlang.org/course/concurrent_programming.html