erlang - What is the easiest way for beginners to install a module?

Question

I checked out rebar, but that seems way too complex. Maybe someone could post something that says, %Post your code here in the following rebar app:

%%%-------------------------------------------------------------------
%% @doc myapp public API
%% @end
%%%-------------------------------------------------------------------

-module('myapp_app').

-behaviour(application).

%% Application callbacks
-export([start/2
        ,stop/1]).

%%====================================================================
%% API
%%====================================================================

start(_StartType, _StartArgs) ->
    'myapp_sup':start_link().

%%--------------------------------------------------------------------
stop(_State) ->
    ok.

Is there some easier alternative for beginners?

Answer 1

You cannot escape having to learn your language's build system if you're going to create anything non-trivial. If you are familiar with GNU Make you can use erlang.mk instead of Rebar, but I believe Rebar3 is the most beginner-friendly.

---

To solve the specific problem of running someone's library code inside of the REPL, try the following with rebar3:

rebar3 new app

Ignore the source files that it creates for now. Edit rebar.config and add dependencies. Then, launch a REPL that has those dependencies loaded (along with any source files you've created in the src/ directory):

rebar3 shell