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Erlang / Erlang Basics Interview questions

What is OTP?

OTP (Open Telecom Platform) is the standard library and set of design principles bundled with Erlang for building reliable systems. It's not a separate product — it ships with the language and supplies battle-tested behaviors (reusable process templates) so teams stop reinventing server loops, supervision trees, and finite state machines by hand.

The core building blocks include:

  • gen_server — generic client/server process
  • supervisor — monitors and restarts child processes
  • gen_statem — generic finite state machine
  • application — packaging and lifecycle for a deployable unit

Using OTP behaviors means your business logic plugs into a well-tested process skeleton instead of hand-rolling message loops, which is why virtually all production Erlang systems are built on top of it.

What is OTP in the Erlang ecosystem?
Which OTP behavior is used to monitor and restart child processes?

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