Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd say Elixir is the skin, like you say: without it, all your rocket pieces are out in the open and not particularly aerodynamic, and they'll start breaking off and you won't be going to space today. There are other skins, though, like LFE and Erlang itself. The Erlang VM is the engine. You can make a beautiful, sleek, aerodynamic rocket, but it ain't going anywhere unless you literally light a fire under its butt.…
Except that “rockets” built with Erlang have been aerodynamic, production-ready, and deployed some 20 years before Elixir has even existed and they are still in use today. They did not start breaking off and, yes, they actually went to space, as opposed to what you imply in a very sneaky way in your first statement. If you want to be fair, you can say that Elixir is another skin of Erlang, the other way around does n…
I personally consider Elixir to have fewer aerodynamic bumps and other sources of drag than Erlang itself, but that's just, like, my opinion, man. Obviously people will disagree with that, and that's fine.