4 ms·

Why do you need Elixir for building this kind of project? Any real benefits?

quaunaut 11y ago
"Need" is always such a strong word, but Phoenix is particularly well-suited to real-time applications, and can scale pretty ridiculously off of them. Not to mention, Elixir is a joy to code in, and a lot of us are still experimenting with it, trying to figure out where it's going. So projects like this are a good outlet.
tvmalsv 11y ago
I haven't hit their site yet, but I don't think they're saying you need Elixir to build this kind of project. I think it's more along the lines of needing Elixir to build a tutorial series for Elixir. As for the benefits of using Elixir, I'm not qualified to answer that since I've only skimmed the surface of what Elixir is (but it looks intriguing!).
gjkood 11y ago
Elixir compiles to bytecode for the Erlang VM/BEAM. Erlang + OTP = scalable/fault-tolerant distributed systems. Phoenix is closely coupled with OTP. Not sure if Trello itself requires it or benefits from it, but any distributed system can benefit from this architecture.
tvon 11y ago
This use of "need" makes me wonder what the earliest tech is that you could use to build a trello-ish. I'm thinking it's doable with C, CGI, and xmlhttprequest....
- thameera 11y ago
  Or a more closer-to-the-metal solution like Node.js? Joking aside, I wonder if it's possible to write a real-time webapp with C and CGI. Ok, 'possible' is a strong word; but I'd really like to hear from someone who'd given this a try.
  - debaserab2 11y ago
    Why wouldn't it be?
  - deathtrader666 11y ago
    There are a few web games & apps written in C that were posted to HN.
  - jnbiche 11y ago
    Sure it would be. Wouldn't be terribly hard, either. Use normal CGI along with a library like libwebsockets. Now, would I deploy it for production? Not likely.
  - mst 11y ago
    Back in the mists of time, there was a thing called CGI-IRC written in perl that you deployed as an nph CGI script and would then do real time comms; I think (vague memory) the original authors an ircatwork.com using it and then eventually started mibbit. I don't recall seeing one written in C, I think the last time I saw a CGI script written in C was a some years ago version of Nagios
- jc4p 11y ago
  tongue in cheek, but check out Trello in 4096 bytes: http://danlec.com/blog/trello-in-4096-bytes http://danlec.com/blog/trello-in-4096-bytes
sergiotapia 11y ago
Trello has a certain real-time aspect to it that lends itself very well with Elixir channels. (At least I assume this tutorial is going to use that for the realtime bit). Rails is coming out with something as well, called ActionCable. And finally Meteor has it with utmost simplicity as well. Just save to the database and Meteor updates the data to everyone, automatically.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

"Need" is always such a strong word, but Phoenix is particularly well-suited to real-time applications, and can scale pretty ridiculously off of them. Not to mention, Elixir is a joy to code in, and a lot of us are still experimenting with it, trying to figure out where it's going. So projects like this are a good outlet.

tvmalsv 11y ago

I haven't hit their site yet, but I don't think they're saying you need Elixir to build this kind of project. I think it's more along the lines of needing Elixir to build a tutorial series for Elixir. As for the benefits of using Elixir, I'm not qualified to answer that since I've only skimmed the surface of what Elixir is (but it looks intriguing!).

gjkood 11y ago

Elixir compiles to bytecode for the Erlang VM/BEAM. Erlang + OTP = scalable/fault-tolerant distributed systems. Phoenix is closely coupled with OTP. Not sure if Trello itself requires it or benefits from it, but any distributed system can benefit from this architecture.

tvon 11y ago

This use of "need" makes me wonder what the earliest tech is that you could use to build a trello-ish. I'm thinking it's doable with C, CGI, and xmlhttprequest....

thameera 11y ago
Or a more closer-to-the-metal solution like Node.js? Joking aside, I wonder if it's possible to write a real-time webapp with C and CGI. Ok, 'possible' is a strong word; but I'd really like to hear from someone who'd given this a try.
- debaserab2 11y ago
  Why wouldn't it be?
- deathtrader666 11y ago
  There are a few web games & apps written in C that were posted to HN.
- jnbiche 11y ago
  Sure it would be. Wouldn't be terribly hard, either. Use normal CGI along with a library like libwebsockets. Now, would I deploy it for production? Not likely.
- mst 11y ago
  Back in the mists of time, there was a thing called CGI-IRC written in perl that you deployed as an nph CGI script and would then do real time comms; I think (vague memory) the original authors an ircatwork.com using it and then eventually started mibbit. I don't recall seeing one written in C, I think the last time I saw a CGI script written in C was a some years ago version of Nagios
jc4p 11y ago
tongue in cheek, but check out Trello in 4096 bytes: http://danlec.com/blog/trello-in-4096-bytes http://danlec.com/blog/trello-in-4096-bytes

sergiotapia 11y ago

Trello has a certain real-time aspect to it that lends itself very well with Elixir channels. (At least I assume this tutorial is going to use that for the realtime bit). Rails is coming out with something as well, called ActionCable. And finally Meteor has it with utmost simplicity as well. Just save to the database and Meteor updates the data to everyone, automatically.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]