If this framework gets too popular they'll probably rename it to Firebird. Let's just hope there isn't already another open source software called Firebird.
And then after that they'll rename it to Firefox
Phoenix 1.0
91–100 of 228 posts
Re: Phoenix 1.0
#92Slightly off-topic, but can someone familiar with both Elixir and Erlang explain what Elixir provides in comparison to Erlang. I'm looking into using Erlang for a new project that requires extensive scaling and concurrency and am coming from a functional background so may be more comfortable with the traditional Erlang syntax. However it seems that perhaps more development and activity is happening on the Elixir side…
Thanks all for your responses, really helpful!
Re: Phoenix 1.0
#93Can anyone break down how phoenix compares to meteor? Advantages/Disadvantages? Let's say I'm a CS grad, not a layman.
Re: Phoenix 1.0
#94Slightly off-topic, but can someone familiar with both Elixir and Erlang explain what Elixir provides in comparison to Erlang. I'm looking into using Erlang for a new project that requires extensive scaling and concurrency and am coming from a functional background so may be more comfortable with the traditional Erlang syntax. However it seems that perhaps more development and activity is happening on the Elixir side…
I've been doing full-time Erlang for five years, and I personally prefer Elixir.
Elixir is semantically close to Erlang the language, and allows you to take advantage of all the great benefits of Erlang/OTP.
It's benefit is dev's productivity. Creating OTP applications and releases is simpler, and there are tools in the language (e.g. macros, polymorphism via protocols, tidier stdlib), and around it (e.g. Hex package manager, mix tool, doc tests) that make developers' life simpler.
All of this is possible in plain Erlang, but it's more cumbersome, and sometimes requires home-brewed solutions.
Notice that I'm not discussing syntax at all, because it (mostly) doesn't matter. I actually like the Prologness of Erlang. What I dislike is that some chores require more of my time and yak shaving, compared to Elixir.
Re: Phoenix 1.0
#95If you were choosing today, would you recommend choosing Elixir over Go for web/back-end development? Would you say Go is more suited for high-performance command-line tools, and Elixir for long-term running stuff?
I'm an indie developer building such a back-end (social networking/chat space), have full choice of language. Started using Go earlier this year and mostly happy with it.
Should I switch to Elixir in my next iteration? Would it make me more productive, or save me from various deployment hurdles in long-term?
(Please don't take this as one of those mostly aimless "Hey, is Ruby or Python better?" type of questions. I hate those myself. I'm going to be investing thousands of hours into Go at this point. Hoping for some serious pro-vs-con discussion, hoping people who have architected something big in either language could chime in -- such is the major plus of asking on HN.)
I tried Googling, and the best/most recent I found was this thread. [1]
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/elixir/comments/3c8yfz/how_does_go_...
Re: Phoenix 1.0
#96When people choose to build on a more esoteric language such as Elixir (and to lesser extent Erlang) is it because what they want to do simply is not possible in Ruby/Python/Go/JavaScript/etc or just less efficient, elegant, productive, etc?
my employer uses erlang because it's a huge leap forward operationally over ruby/python/go/java. the erlang/otp concept of a release is extremely straightforward and reliable and the beam (erlang/elixir vm) run time introspection and debugging tools are second to none. it's trivial to attach to any running application and get a REPL with full access to the environment. you can even update running code in place
how do people typically put security (authentication and authorization) around this? You wouldn't want just anyone to be able to connect to your running apps, of course. From what I saw in Elixir, there's some kind of cookie/session key that you can specify, but is that it or is there more?
Re: Phoenix 1.0
#97Does phoenix require javascript, or just this announcement page? I see a big block of text mixed with json... Not so good for noscript users and search engines that don't load JS.
Phoenix is built to power realtime web applications. Realtime web applications require javascript. Edit: Not that you can't use Phoenix without realtime capabilities, but a lot of the good stuff in Phoenix is around Channels.
JavaScript may well be practically required, but there are people/agents that don't have it, and dumping piles of json data on them is a poor fallback.
Re: Phoenix 1.0
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
> can someone familiar with both Elixir and Erlang explain what Elixir provides in comparison to Erlang. The syntax is nicer, but that's just a bonus. The real game-changer to me about Elixir vs Erlang is its macro system. This gives you runtime code execution and runtime code generation, similar to what makes LISP to powerful. There's a large amount of boilerplate involved in creating an OTP server, as you know if y…
You can do reasonable metaprogramming in Erlang with the syntax_tools and stdlib interfaces. Most famously was bringing back parameterized modules via a parser transformation for tools like BossDB to support ActiveRecord-like ORM patterns. I've looked at OTP the Elixir way and I do not see any real boilerplate reduction. The application-project dichotomy and the opinionated integration with a tool like Mix is also po…
> You can do reasonable metaprogramming in Erlang with the syntax_tools and stdlib interfaces.
You can also do concurrency in Ruby. It is not the same as doing concurrency in Erlang though. The same way doing metaprogramming with syntax tools, parse transforms and what not is nowhere close to a macro system.
> I've looked at OTP the Elixir way and I do not see any real boilerplate reduction.
So please look again? Take a look at Elixir's agents or tasks and explain how it doesn't lead to more readable and cleaner code than the GenServer equivalent in Erlang for the cases they fit. You could maybe point other criticism but saying "no real boilerplate reduction" just shows you didn't really try or care to give it a try.
> It is a jarring conceptual mismatch to put Smalltalk-ish Ruby syntax over a language that eschews excessive monkey patching and dynamism like Erlang.
This sentence is specially ironic given that Erlang inherits from Prolog, which is quite different semantically from Erlang, instead of using the more tradicional ML families. Also Erlang is pretty much a very dynamic language.
I am a Haskell developer, I hate Ruby syntax and I programmed Erlang for a year. I would still choose Elixir over Erlang any day mostly because of the tooling, typeclass like polymorphism and the new abstractions (Task and Agent).
Re: Phoenix 1.0
#99After spending nearly 7 years in the Ruby and Rails ecosystem, I changed jobs and have been working in with Elixir and Phoenix for nearly 3 months. I have been very satisfied with the process. The community is amazing, the tooling is unbeatable, and the quality and availability of open source libraries is great, especially for such a young project. The future looks very bright for Elixir and Phoenix!
Agreed. One of the many things that makes Phoenix/Elixir great for us rails/ruby refugees is that it's built by other rails/ruby refugees. In many ways, we have all the good things that our old masters DHH trailblazed with rails, but at the same time, very little of the mess that also came with the trail-blazing. That being said, I do miss active_support though; Elixir's utility libraries (fox, pipe, croma, etc.) doe…
I downvoted you and I wanted to say why:
1) Referring to DHH and others as a "our old masters" instinctively bothered me.
2) While I appreciate that Elixir and Phoenix have Rails connections and can learn from it, I'd prefer it not become just a place for Rails refugees where it turns into a huge circle jerk about how Rails is terrible and Phoenix is great (which happens all too often in communities).
Other than that, I agree. But we should start something new.
Re: Phoenix 1.0
#100If you were choosing today, would you recommend choosing Elixir over Go for web/back-end development? Would you say Go is more suited for high-performance command-line tools, and Elixir for long-term running stuff? I'm an indie developer building such a back-end (social networking/chat space), have full choice of language. Started using Go earlier this year and mostly happy with it. Should I switch to Elixir in my ne…
Out of curiosity, which libs/frameworks are you using in Go? (that are web related)