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Elixir v1.10

elixir-lang.org

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Re: Elixir v1.10

#61

Post by elcritch »

playing_colours wrote: post #49

A very interesting language on powerful platform with a promising web framework. Many saw it, myself included, as a Ruby / Rails Improved, and expected its quick growth. Unfortunately, initial enthusiasm a few years ago did lead to its wide adoption. I talked with a couple of companies that jumped on it initially, but later decided to move to Java, Kotlin, Go. The main reason was difficulty to hire engineers to scale…

Weird, on the Elixir forums and slack channels there seems to be a fair number of developers working or wanting to work in Elixir. Perhaps the initial uptake in interest outpaced the developer interests in some areas. It'd be interesting to know what the community is like in Europe.

Based on the recent formation of Dashbit [1] and larger companies like PepsiCo (?!) among others openly jumping onboard I think means Elixir has reached a clear point of sustainability for those willing to find (and train!) devs. Likely it'll never be RoR level, but I'm fine with that if it keeps the dev community more selective. Functional programming in general seems to be a bit of a self-selector.

1: https://elixirforum.com/t/jose-valim-announces-his-new-elixi...

Re: Elixir v1.10

#62

Post by hopia »

RussianCow wrote: post #60
hopia wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really agree that Elixir is a good intro to functional languages. It doesn't really teach you much about the functional paradigm as Elixir is fairly imperative by nature. It focuses on practicality rather than adhering to the functional paradigm (lambda calculus etc.). That's probably the right choice for building highly concurrent industrial systems, but purely for learning about FP not quite as good as some…

Isn't the fact that it isn't "pure" exactly what makes it a good introduction to the paradigm?

Here I thought that's exactly the fact that makes it less ideal for learning about the functional paradigm.

You also spend a considerable amount of time on Elixir learning how to architect fault tolerant concurrent systems. While useful, this doesn't have much to do with functional paradigm per se.

Re: Elixir v1.10

#63

Post by hajile »

xyst wrote: post #38

What’s the advantage of using this language over Rust, Go, Java (or any other JVM language), or Python?

Rust: much lower-level systems language which will take quite a bit more development time.

Go: Go's CMT implementation is fundamentally broken (you can't just use go channels without mutexes for complex work unless you want your application to have bugs). Elixir and Erlang Actors have much better guarantees.

Java: BEAM is slower than the JVM, but much more stable. Native actors are a much better experience than Akka.

Python: Django finally added initial support for async development, but library support is a long ways off (and the GIL is its own issue). BEAM is about an order of magnitude faster than Cpython (though probably similar performance with pypy). If you prefer Ruby syntax over Python, there is no contest here.

My big question is less Why BEAM? and more Why Elixir?

I prefer the native Erlang Syntax, LFE/Joxa (lisps), or alpaca (ML family with static types) over Ruby-ish syntax.

Re: Elixir v1.10

#64

Post by sbarre »

cambalache wrote: post #11
sbarre wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just started my Elixir journey late last year, and I've been using a combination of Elixir School[0], the Ecto guides[1] and a video course from Pragmatic Studio[2] that I picked up on sale back in December. The video course was a mixed bag but mostly useful. I am also new to functional programming so it was helpful for getting my head around a new way of planning my code but there were definitely chapters that wer…

Could you explain a little bit more what you didnt like about the video course. No affiliation but I want to enter this area and I always looking forward to understand what make a course bad/good for a student.

Sure.

Like I said I think overall the video course was well done, and I'm still glad I took it.

Honestly, I think my gripes are mostly subjective, and this will always be the case with one-size-fits-all training.

Certain aspects that are covered by the course were things I was already quite familiar with, so I was itching to skip ahead. There was nothing wrong with the work itself or the instructors. That stuff was very good.

Re: Elixir v1.10

#65

Post by s3cur3 »

playing_colours wrote: post #49

A very interesting language on powerful platform with a promising web framework. Many saw it, myself included, as a Ruby / Rails Improved, and expected its quick growth. Unfortunately, initial enthusiasm a few years ago did lead to its wide adoption. I talked with a couple of companies that jumped on it initially, but later decided to move to Java, Kotlin, Go. The main reason was difficulty to hire engineers to scale…

I've been writing Elixir professionally for about a month now. I previously had zero experience with Elixir, Erlang, Ruby, or even any functional languages (though I have read quite a bit about functional programming, and adopted a lot of functional techniques in my C++ & Python).

The learning process has been, frankly, incredibly easy. I read a bit of Saša Jurić's "Elixir in Action" and Dave Thomas's "Programming Elixir," but mostly I just dove in with the Elixir docs' tutorial (https://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/mix-otp/introduction...). I'm not claiming to be writing the best Elixir ever, but I shipped my first production app in the first week and it's been rock solid.

I think most companies massively overvalue hiring people with "x years' experience" in whatever tech they're using. Better to hire smart people with a solid foundation in writing good code and train them on your particular tech stack.

Re: Elixir v1.10

#66

Post by cambalache »

sbarre wrote: post #64
cambalache wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain a little bit more what you didnt like about the video course. No affiliation but I want to enter this area and I always looking forward to understand what make a course bad/good for a student.

Sure. Like I said I think overall the video course was well done, and I'm still glad I took it. Honestly, I think my gripes are mostly subjective, and this will always be the case with one-size-fits-all training. Certain aspects that are covered by the course were things I was already quite familiar with, so I was itching to skip ahead. There was nothing wrong with the work itself or the instructors. That stuff was v…

Yes, it makes sense. I think both their framework courses (Rails/Phoenix) are solid but pretty basic. They have a nice production quality so there is definitively a lot of worth in them.

Re: Elixir v1.10

#67

Post by pmarreck »

happy_path wrote: post #3

Having learnt Ruby and a bit of Erlang, I'm interested in Elixir so I fire this tangential question: How would you recommend to learn Elixir? And a follow-up: some ideas for personal Elixir-based projects?

I think it depends on how you learn.

I like to get a "lay of the land" before I commit to a new lang so I read Dave Thomas' book on it while playing around with the language on small personal projects (same way I handled Ruby, read the Pickaxe book and did a few language experiments on my own). But YMMV.

I will say this- once you read the book it becomes ENTIRELY obvious to you who has not, when they ask certain questions, like "what is a sigil?"

Re: Elixir v1.10

#68

Post by s3cur3 »

hajile wrote: post #63
xyst wrote: post #38

What’s the advantage of using this language over Rust, Go, Java (or any other JVM language), or Python?

Rust: much lower-level systems language which will take quite a bit more development time. Go: Go's CMT implementation is fundamentally broken (you can't just use go channels without mutexes for complex work unless you want your application to have bugs). Elixir and Erlang Actors have much better guarantees. Java: BEAM is slower than the JVM, but much more stable. Native actors are a much better experience than Akka.…

Even if you prefer the Erlang syntax, you might choose Elixir for the libraries. E.g., as far as I know, Phoenix isn't available from "plain" Erlang.

Re: Elixir v1.10

#69

Post by pmarreck »

josevalim wrote: post #24
sandGorgon wrote: post #13

This is the first release of Elixir after the Nubank acquisition of the parent company - http://blog.plataformatec.com.br/2020/01/important-informati...

It is curious to see Plataformatec being referred to as Elixir's parent company but I guess it makes sense legally. Plataformatec does own the trademarks for the name and language - which we are currently working on moving the control to the Elixir Core Team. In terms of development, however, it is more of a shared custody by many community members and companies. For example, Elixir Core Team has 6 developers and onl…

Gotta say "thank you" for finding the guts to pursue a new language, I think it's been my favorite of them all so far, and the code I've written in Elixir has always been very resilient, very easy to read, very easy to debug and very maintainable (not to mention, just fun to write!)... something which I credit more to Elixir's (and BEAM's) design more than my own.

Being on average 10x faster at the same kinds of tasks than Ruby is, also helps, of course >..<

Re: Elixir v1.10

#70

Post by lawik »

elcritch wrote: post #61
playing_colours wrote: post #49

A very interesting language on powerful platform with a promising web framework. Many saw it, myself included, as a Ruby / Rails Improved, and expected its quick growth. Unfortunately, initial enthusiasm a few years ago did lead to its wide adoption. I talked with a couple of companies that jumped on it initially, but later decided to move to Java, Kotlin, Go. The main reason was difficulty to hire engineers to scale…

Weird, on the Elixir forums and slack channels there seems to be a fair number of developers working or wanting to work in Elixir. Perhaps the initial uptake in interest outpaced the developer interests in some areas. It'd be interesting to know what the community is like in Europe. Based on the recent formation of Dashbit [1] and larger companies like PepsiCo (?!) among others openly jumping onboard I think means El…

I think there is a touch of catch 22 in "are there enough devs? are there enough companies?"

But from my end it looks to be improving. I've gotten going with doing it professionally and I hope to maintain that focus mostly.

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