Coming from an Erlang background, I found it very easy to get started with Elixir, it has the same underlying concepts and power as Erlang. Elixir takes it to t

Coming from an Erlang background, I found it very easy to get started with Elixir, it has the same underlying concepts and power as Erlang. Elixir takes it to the next level, though. The syntax eliminates annoyances in the Erlang system, e.g. having to fool around with punctuation and work with binary strings. The Elixir standard library gets rid of inconsistencies in the Erlang libraries and it is organized to allow easy chaining via the |> operator. Then it has features like protocols which give the encapsulation and polymorphism of OO without needing objects. And finally we have macros, which are the "right way" to do metaprogramming, allowing ease of use at a Rails level without the mess underneath. Another big thing is that the Elixir community focuses on ease of use and out of box experience the way the Rails community did. So it's easy to get started and all the pieces generally fit together well, e.g. the mix build tool works great, as does the hex package manager, and relx release builder. With Erlang it's more DIY. We have recently converted a big Erlang project to use mix as the build tool, and it just eliminated a bunch of cruft. The interop between Elixir and Erlang is easy. So you get the best of both worlds, the ease of use of Elixir with the power of Erlang, with the highly mature runtime and libraries. And with Phoenix we get a web framework with world class ease of use.