Let's go back to the original statement:
> Erlang already is a more concise language than Elixir but also noisier as there are more punctuation characters.
Nope. Elixir has more punctuation characters, and I've shown that.
Now, when we talk about "punctuation per characters of code", then yes, Erlang may have more punctuation in this regard. But it has another thing going for it: there's significantly less syntax in general, and it needs less brainpower to disambiguate (BTW, Elixir's syntax is ambiguous to the point that the compiler can't figure it out in certain contexts).
Even in the examples you provided:
defp encode_hex(>, acc) do
a = encode_hex_digit(a)
b = encode_hex_digit(b)
encode_hex(rest, >)
end
defp encode_hex_digit(char) when char
Oh, look, it was `f() do ... end` but then all of a sudden `f(), do: ` (with no end). Whereas Erlang's syntax is (mostly) the same forms everywhere.
And where Erlang is consistent due to terseness of syntax:
decode_hex_char(Char) when Char >= $a, Char =
Char - $a + 10;
Elixir is an agglomeration of punctuation:
defp decode_hex_char(char) when char in ?a..?f, do: char - ?a + 10
I have complained about Elixir syntax in the past [1] when I knew little to no Elixir (I'm now building a big-ish side project in it), but the complaint mostly remains.
Meanwhile Erlang may look like it uses more punctuation, but that punctuation can be much easier pattern-matched by our brains because it's consistent and means the same in (almost) all cases.
[1] https://medium.com/@dmitriid/in-which-i-complain-about-elixi...