> is it because what they want to do simply is not possible in Ruby/Python/Go/JavaScript/etc There are several key distinctions about Elixir vs the other langu

> is it because what they want to do simply is not possible in Ruby/Python/Go/JavaScript/etc There are several key distinctions about Elixir vs the other languages you mentioned. These are things that are basically not going to happen in Ruby, Python, Go, Javascript, or etc.: 1) You get the benefits of Erlang/OTP as others have mentioned in their replies. 2) You also get the amazing macro capabilities (runtime code execution and runtime code generation, a la LISP) that Elixir brings to the table. Many of the language features of Elixir are written in macros in Elixir. The source to both Elixir and Phoenix are quite elegant and educational to browse, and demonstrate this runtime code generation aspect very well. It's straightforward in Elixir to introspect code, represent that code as data structures, manipulate those data structures, then generate or execute that code, as you can in LISP. 3) Immuatable data and functional style leads to better code in lots of ways. This is what really makes the benefits of OTP possible (updating the code without restarting the servers, easily migrating state between servers, and so on). But it also makes certain kinds of situations easier to understand and fix, since all state in the system can be expressed as parameters to functions.