While I like this idea, I think the parent's point is that the utter simplicity of the language is worth living without these things. I personally prefer Erlan

While I like this idea, I think the parent's point is that the utter simplicity of the language is worth living without these things. I personally prefer Erlang to Elixir aesthetically. The big wins I see from Elixir are protocols and standardized tooling (though I have high hopes for rebar3). Parse transforms are overkill for most things but that's about how often I need things like macros in the world of Erlang. Even still, today's Erlang ecosystem is about the BEAM and it's great to have so many options. Erlang, Elixir, LFE, Lua, Joxa, &c.