BEAM for Developers: Deep Dive: The BEAM for Developers

Course Title: Deep Dive - The BEAM for Developers

A hands-on, module-based course designed to give developers a practical, systems-level understanding of the BEAM, Erlang Runtime System (ERTS), and performance-critical patterns in real-world Elixir and Erlang systems.

Modules Overview:

Module 1: Thinking in Processes

• Goal: Internalize process-oriented programming, core to BEAM/ERTS.
• Outcome: Understand lightweight processes, isolation, messaging, mailbox management, and process architecture.
• Hands-on: Design exercises-build a simple chat server with process isolation.
• Reference: [ERTS Performance - Monitoring and Tuning, ch 2][139†source]

Module 2: Memory & Garbage Collection

• Goal: Deep dive into BEAM’s memory model: heaps, stacks, mailboxes, and generational GC.
• Outcome: Ability to optimize memory usage and debug GC-related performance issues.
• Hands-on: Experiments with process memory, copying, and mailbox bloat.
• Reference: [ERTS Performance - Monitoring and Tuning, ch 3][139†source]

Module 3: Data Types & Messaging

• Goal: Understand Erlang data types, tagging, binary handling, and message passing semantics.
• Outcome: Efficient use of binaries, lists, tuples, and process communication in scalable apps.
• Hands-on: Profile and optimize message-heavy systems.
• Reference: [ERTS Performance - Monitoring and Tuning, ch 4][139†source]

Module 4: Scheduling & Concurrency

• Goal: Master the BEAM scheduler, reductions, priorities, SMP/parallelism, and timing wheels.
• Outcome: Tune system throughput and latency, understand process scheduling in multicore systems.
• Hands-on: Visualize and tweak scheduler behavior; identify bottlenecks.
• Reference: [ERTS Performance - Monitoring and Tuning, ch 5][139†source]

Module 5: Debugging, Monitoring, and Performance Tuning

• Goal: Equip devs with tools and techniques to monitor, debug, and tune production BEAM systems.
• Outcome: Confidently use tools like :observer, :erlang.process_info, tracing, and in-depth log analysis.
• Hands-on: Lab: Real incident post-mortems and exercises in tracing and profiling.
• Reference: [ERTS Performance - Monitoring and Tuning, ch 10, 11][139†source]

Module 6: Real-World BEAM Patterns & Anti-patterns

• Goal: Recognize common design pitfalls, performance issues, and scaling challenges.
• Outcome: Write robust, maintainable code and architect for reliability and performance.
• Hands-on: Group review of BEAM code snippets-identify and fix anti-patterns.

Detailed Module Outcomes

Module 1: Thinking in Processes

• Explain how process isolation and message passing provide reliability.
• Identify when to use processes vs. modules vs. domains.
• Avoid the "GenServer Trap"-synchronize only when necessary.
• Exercise: Design and implement process-based systems.

Module 2: Memory & GC

• Visualize BEAM’s process heap, stack, and mailbox.
• Understand generational GC and its impact on performance.
• Experiment: Profile process memory and garbage collection in real code.

Module 3: Data Types & Messaging

• Explore BEAM’s type system, tagging, and memory layout.
• Use binaries, lists, and maps effectively for IO and messaging.
• Avoid pitfalls with large binaries, sub-binaries, and sharing.

Module 4: Scheduling & Concurrency

• Understand BEAM’s scheduler, priorities, and reductions.
• Use concurrency primitives for safe, scalable code.
• Analyze process states and scheduler queues.
• Lab: Balance CPU-bound and IO-bound workloads.

Module 5: Debugging, Monitoring, Tuning

• Master :observer, :process_info, and tracing tools.
• Set up and read BEAM system metrics and logs.
• Tune system performance and handle production incidents.

Module 6: Patterns & Anti-patterns

• Spot and avoid common design mistakes in BEAM systems.
• Apply patterns for supervision, fault tolerance, and scalable message handling.
• Exercise: Refactor legacy code for clarity, maintainability, and performance.