I'm trying to decide between taking a Django job and an Elixir one. Can't decide between old and proven and new and early adopter. Any advice?
Elixir : mind expanding -> skills expanding
Elixir for Humans Who Know Python
111–120 of 198 posts
Re: Elixir for Humans Who Know Python
#112No offense to TFA author, but I don't think this is doing to sell Elixir to Python people. In fact, I have serious doubts as to whether most Python lovers would be willing to set aside their beliefs and practices to learn the Elixir way. Perhaps Phoenix and LiveView will be the gateway drug, but even to reach that point requires a lot of effort to understand functional programming and Elixir. Python has some function…
The Phoenix docs don't look like they even hold a candle to Django. I spent 5mins in it and still don't know how to define a model. I eventually figured out a doc section called "Ecto" - so i had to know what ecto was to find it. Then, in those docs I still don't know how to define models. Do they expect me to manage my database and schemas separately and generate the models from that? That's completely opposite what…
I'm not really familiar with Phoenix, but skimming through the section linked below, it seems to cover what you're looking for? Basically, you use a tool to generate your model + migration code and then run the migrations.
https://hexdocs.pm/phoenix/ecto.html#using-the-schema-and-mi...
As for the comparison to Django, I don't really expect any web framework to have docs at that level. They are simply huge and have been around for quite a while.
Re: Elixir for Humans Who Know Python
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve never used Ecto outside of a Phoenix app, so yes, in my mind the line between them was blurry. Thanks for pointing out my mistake! A very recent real-world challenge I ran into was having to coordinate updates and diffs to all the files involved and keeping them in sync while doing local development (before deployment but also while working on fixing a very subtle bug). Every time I changed the migration file (e…
It is totally fine to get spoiled if you consider it is better :D Your case about structure.sql is interesting. It would be nice if we could automate it somehow but, if we simply tried to re-run a changed migration, then the migration would likely fail because the other operations in it (such as adding fields), you already exist, no? Do you have any suggestions/ideas on how to tackle this? We could have a "mix ecto.m…
Django’s approach is to run all the migrations, from the migration files, if the database gets wiped clean. In other words, if you’re developing on your local machine, you can just drop the DB and start new (or if using SQLite, just delete a file), and after running migrations, you never have to worry about whether all the necessary files are in sync with the database. As Neo might say:“there is no spoon…” seriously, structure.sql is simply not needed, so you won’t find yourself making creative use of git reset/checkout on a specific file as you’re iterating.
To answer an earlier question you had, Django’s “makemigrations” command tries its best to help you avoid having to manually edit migration files; if you rename a field in models.py, it’s usually smart enough to ask you, at the command line, if you renamed it, and proceed to make the migration file for you. Of course, for advanced migrations the command can only take you so far, but again, if you’re trying to iterate quickly, you really need to experience Django’s ORM and DB tools to be able to appreciate them fully.
Regarding changesets, I love the functional API, and at the same time I wish we could automatically derive a “default_changeset” function from the schema itself for straightforward cases, and then let devs run diverging validations in their own changeset functions. Maybe an interesting idea to explore with a macro?
By the way, I’m a huge fan of your work, and hope I get the opportunity to work with Elixir for a long time. Any criticisms or comparisons are to try to bring improvements to the ecosystem I love. :)
Re: Elixir for Humans Who Know Python
#114I like how programming language article/book title cliches are cross-pollinating now. In a decade, I hope we'll have "Bite size julia for morons who know how to stand on one leg and can read perl"
Re: Elixir for Humans Who Know Python
#115No offense to TFA author, but I don't think this is doing to sell Elixir to Python people. In fact, I have serious doubts as to whether most Python lovers would be willing to set aside their beliefs and practices to learn the Elixir way. Perhaps Phoenix and LiveView will be the gateway drug, but even to reach that point requires a lot of effort to understand functional programming and Elixir. Python has some function…
The Phoenix docs don't look like they even hold a candle to Django. I spent 5mins in it and still don't know how to define a model. I eventually figured out a doc section called "Ecto" - so i had to know what ecto was to find it. Then, in those docs I still don't know how to define models. Do they expect me to manage my database and schemas separately and generate the models from that? That's completely opposite what…
Phoenix doesn't have the concept of a "model". The functionality of what Rails (and I guess also Django? Idk) calls a "model" is split between a few different places: schemas, changesets, queries, the repo.
It felt weird at first, coming from Rails, but after getting used to it I don't miss "models" at all. ActiveRecord models in Rails are a vastly overloaded concept anyway and pretty much always degenerate fast into an ungodly mess as your app grows. I prefer Phoenix's approach.
Re: Elixir for Humans Who Know Python
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this article does capture the magic of elixir phoenix live view that is impossible in the async await madness hell in python. I cannot wait to try elixir Phoenix live view, elixir |> pipes, :atom pattern matching and ets pids to send and manage processes across servers none of these AFAIK are currently possible with the GIL and single threaded nature of python As the venerable prof Joe armstrong would say you…
You can pattern match on basically any shape, not just atoms. Imagine you’re parsing a protocol over tcp and want to grab groups of characters between deliverers, you can pattern match that. I rewrote an hl7 parser from Java to Ruby to Elixr some years ago and the elixir implementation performed as well as Java and was more readable by miles.
> You can pattern match on basically any shape, not just atoms. Imagine you’re parsing a protocol over tcp and want to grab groups of characters between deliverers, you can pattern match that.
Ex: https://youtu.be/MaQqa21uxQ8?t=548 (note that "binary" here is a "binary blob of bytes").
Andreas pattern matches on the magic byte, then encoded string length, then the string (using the previous matched length), then an int, all in the function header, no if-else-try-catch mess.
Re: Elixir for Humans Who Know Python
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a Python programmer, I truly believe Elixir/Phoenix is the best stack out there from a technical perspective. However the incredible breadth of libs and resources ... and most importantly the mind share (both available devs, but more importantly available jobs for seniors who commit to Elixir) means that it is still just not a competitive choice. Almost all commercial software dev is not about technical excellence…
I guess it really depends on your definition of "make it". :) Elixir today is used by startups, unicorns, fortune 500, and at least two of the FAANG (for whatever it is worth). It is used for web apps, embedded, distributed systems, data processing, and making inroads on AI and machine learning. It has a vibrant community with events around the world, several dozens books, and more. It is on the [top quadrant of Redm…
I could be wrong and I really hope I am ... I really think it's the best stack out there, at least until you need the sort of extreme performance that dictates Rust (and even there Rustler looks good ... particularly as Rust extensions shouldn't jeopardise the extreme stability of the BEAM).
But right now it looks on course to go the way of Clojure or Scala ... hanging in there for sure, but never becoming a major player. This inevitably affects the range of 3rd party APIs and libs, meaning many companies will consider it too risky. It's not about what will impress an engineer (Elixir does that) it's now about what will reassure an accountant.
I also notice that in the majority of job postings mentioning Elixir (i.e. just at the keyword search level) it is not actually the core language for the job, but rather a filter/attractor to try and hook top Ruby devs (who seem to be in short supply).
Re: Elixir for Humans Who Know Python
#118My perhaps slightly biased input on Python vs. Elixir (I worked with Python for different projects for a couple years, and have been using Elixir full-time for ~1.5 years). Elixir as a core technology for application development (as opposed to data science/ML/AI - it’s still early days for Nx/Axon/etc.) is better than Python in just about every way that matters; e.g. immutability by default eliminating whole classes…
If you don’t mind, I have some questions as I would like to learn more. Are you aware of a large models.py for reference and learning purposes? Is it expected to define the schema of all my models in a single place but none of the logic? Also, don’t you run into scenarios in Django where the automatic migration is not enough and you need to provide custom commands? In such cases, how do you provide them? And can you…
> Also, don’t you run into scenarios in Django where the automatic migration is not enough and you need to provide custom commands? In such cases, how do you provide them?
Data migrations are the obvious case where you need to write migration code manually. It comes up in schema migrations too on big projects. It’s easy to modify the auto-generated migration; it’s just Python that gets run by the migration tool:
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/4.1/topics/migrations/#dat...
Re: Elixir for Humans Who Know Python
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think this is something that will come down to technical merits. Unfortunately it is a popularity contest, where entrenched network effects are working against Elixir. As a Python programmer, I truly believe Elixir/Phoenix is the best stack out there from a technical perspective. However the incredible breadth of libs and resources ... and most importantly the mind share (both available devs, but more importa…
That does seem like the same arguments that are made prior to just about anything becoming mainstream though. I'm not saying it means nothing that python has so much mindshare, but the same could have been said to pythons predecessors as well. You're right about commercialization not being about technical excellence, in the short term. In the medium and long term, it's the advantages of recent technical excellence th…
It's also the same arguments that are made prior to things falling by the wayside.
Not that I think Elixir will ever fall away, just that it won't go fully mainstream.
Re: Elixir for Humans Who Know Python
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you don’t mind, I have some questions as I would like to learn more. Are you aware of a large models.py for reference and learning purposes? Is it expected to define the schema of all my models in a single place but none of the logic? Also, don’t you run into scenarios in Django where the automatic migration is not enough and you need to provide custom commands? In such cases, how do you provide them? And can you…
>Are you aware of a large models.py for reference and learning purposes? Is it expected to define the schema of all my models in a single place but none of the logic? Django models are normal python classes. Depends on exactly the logic you're dealing with, but generally you can make logic be a method on that class. Try to avoid logic that spans multiple tables in general, and if you have logic that does span multipl…
> I mean you can using proxy models but that's not really a thing with django.
I think this is over-opinionated. You can use Proxy models, and this is a thing in Django. It’s not “Django 101” sure, but it’s not discouraged.
One reason you might want proxy models is if you want to only fetch certain columns for a specific type of usage. Another common use for proxy models is as a hack to get multiple Django Admin pages for the same model (again, perhaps pulling different fields or offering different views).