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<!DOCTYPE chapter SYSTEM "chapter.dtd">

<chapter>
  <header>
    <copyright>
      <year>2003</year><year>2013</year>
      <holder>Ericsson AB. All Rights Reserved.</holder>
    </copyright>
    <legalnotice>
      Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
      you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
      You may obtain a copy of the License at
 
          http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

      Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
      distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
      WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
      See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
      limitations under the License.

    </legalnotice>

    <title>Introduction</title>
    <prepared></prepared>
    <docno></docno>
    <date></date>
    <rev></rev>
    <file>intro.xml</file>
  </header>
  <marker id="getting started"></marker>

    <p>This section is a quick start tutorial to get you started with Erlang.
      Everything in this section is true, but only part of the truth. For example,
      only the simplest form of the syntax is shown, not all esoteric forms.
      Also, parts that are greatly simplified are indicated with *manual*.
      This means that a lot more information on the subject is to be found in
      the Erlang book or in
      <seealso marker="doc/reference_manual:introduction#erlang ref manual">
      Erlang Reference Manual</seealso>.</p>

  <section>
    <title>Prerequisites</title>

    <p>The reader of this section is assumed to be familiar with the following:</p>
    <list type="bulleted">
      <item>Computers in general</item>
      <item>Basics on how computers are programmed</item>
    </list>

  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Omitted Topics</title>

    <p>The following topics are not treated in this section:</p>
    <list type="bulleted">
      <item>References.</item>
      <item>Local error handling (catch/throw).</item>
      <item>Single direction links (monitor).</item>
      <item>Handling of binary data (binaries / bit syntax).</item>
      <item>List comprehensions.</item>
      <item>How to communicate with the outside world and software
        written in other languages (ports);
        this is described in
        <seealso marker="doc/tutorial:introduction#interoperability tutorial">
        Interoperability Tutorial</seealso>.</item>
      <item>Erlang libraries (for example, file handling).</item>
      <item>OTP and (in consequence) the Mnesia database.</item>
      <item>Hash tables for Erlang terms (ETS).</item>
      <item>Changing code in running systems.</item>
    </list>
  </section>
</chapter>

