Elixir v1.20: Now a gradually typed language

Post by sevenzero » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 7:49 PM UTC

mihaelm wrote: post #9

sevenzero wrote: post #2

Oh shit here I go (and learn Elixir for a whole year (again)) again. I love everything about Elixir, but Elixir constantly makes me doubt myself like no other language. My brain isnt made for functional stuff, but this makes me want to try again. Sucks that it's not really a beginner friendly ecosystem and usually, when having questions answered, people assume you already know a lot about the language.

Do you maybe know some Rust? I'm also not that experienced with FP languages, but Gleam felt familiar enough, due to some Rust-isms, to allow me to focus more on the concepts rather than the syntax. Granted, I spent a few afternoons with it, but if I were to pick a FP language again to wrestle my brain into submission, I'd probably go with Gleam due to familiarity.

Post by hackyhacky » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 7:53 PM UTC

lionkor wrote: post #22

7bit wrote: post #20

Found elixir intriguing and so Phoenix. Two reasons I put it aside again are: You need Beam and the Elixir. I find that really weird, because I'm used to just the language like in Python, Java, C, Rust. Not something underneath it, too. There is no debugger. The way to debug Elixir is to print stuff to the console, like 40 years ago. No thanks.

Java has the JVM the same way that Elixir has Beam/OTP/...

Post by cpursley » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 7:56 PM UTC

sevenzero wrote: post #2

Oh shit here I go (and learn Elixir for a whole year (again)) again. I love everything about Elixir, but Elixir constantly makes me doubt myself like no other language. My brain isnt made for functional stuff, but this makes me want to try again. Sucks that it's not really a beginner friendly ecosystem and usually, when having questions answered, people assume you already know a lot about the language.

Post by kajman » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 7:58 PM UTC

pjm331 wrote: post #10

sevenzero wrote: post #2

Oh shit here I go (and learn Elixir for a whole year (again)) again. I love everything about Elixir, but Elixir constantly makes me doubt myself like no other language. My brain isnt made for functional stuff, but this makes me want to try again. Sucks that it's not really a beginner friendly ecosystem and usually, when having questions answered, people assume you already know a lot about the language.

https://pragprog.com/titles/lhelph/functional-web-developmen... don't let the title fool you - the first half of the book is just elixir over the past 8 years this is the book i've used to ramp back up on elixir and it works like a charm every time - i've never finished it for me, a mark of a good programming book in this tutorial-project style is that I have started it half a dozen times and never finished it becaus…

Post by solid_fuel » Wed, Jun 03, 2026, 8:00 PM UTC

sevenzero wrote: post #16

ai_critic wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What functional stuff is throwing you off? A whole bunch of it can be written procedurally when starting out.

With Elixir specifically it was the learning experience I had with Phoenix. I didn't understand how a Phoenix app booted, didn't know where to edit my config. Syntax like: ``` socket "/ws/:user_id", MyApp.UserSocket, websocket: [path: "/project/:project_id"] ``` Elixir gives you too much freedom on how to write something on a syntax level which really annoyed me.

    path = "/ws/:user_id"
    module = MyApp.UserSocket
    args = [
      websocket: [
        path: "/project/:project_id"
      ]
    ]

    socket("/ws/:user_id", MyApp.UserSocket, [websocket: [path: "/project/:project_id"]])

    defmodule MyApp.Endpoint do
      use Phoenix.Endpoint, 
        otp_app: :my_app,
        web_sockets: [
          socket("/ws/:user_id", MyApp.UserSocket, [websocket: [path: "/project/:project_id"]])
        ]
    end