3 ms·

Elixir gets plugged so often in other-language threads - whether it's Julia or Ruby or, like here, Crystal - that if it wasn't FOSS I'd have decided it's being

Elixir gets plugged so often in other-language threads - whether it's Julia or Ruby or, like here, Crystal - that if it wasn't FOSS I'd have decided it's being astroturfed. I guess it's a good thing that people like it so much, but it's really starting to feel marketing-y by now.

rdtsc 10y ago
> that if it wasn't FOSS I'd have decided it's being astroturfed. That's a good sign! You know why? Because it has a great community and is very friendly for new comers. Jose, Eric and the rest of the team made that a priority and it shows. It doesn't just mean being nice on IRC, it also means putting usability first, putting more effort in how example looks, how documentation looks and so on. If Google invented a language then proceed to push and sponsor it, by paying authors to work on it, organizing marketing, hackathons etc, then it is hard to say if it popular because of Google's backing or because it has its own merits.
- StavrosK 10y ago
  "Friendly for newcomers"? I tried to write something the other day, and had an Erlang developer friend to help me. The Elixir docs section just says "buy one of these books to get started", which is completely unacceptable, and we (mostly my friend, as I had no idea what anything is) spent an hour trying to figure out how to run a node, with Google not providing any useful answers. That's as hostile to newcomers as it gets. Contrast this with the Rust book, that gets you from "I have no idea how anything works" to "hey I just wrote a small program!" in a few minutes.
  - iamd3vil 10y ago
    Elixir has a very good getting started guide[0]. I don't know if you have seen this or not. Even in the learning section, it recommends going through the getting started guide. It mentions other books in other resources. I don't know why you think it's hostile to new comers. I learned Elixir totally from Getting started guide and then the documentation. Then for OTP, I have read an Erlang book to understand it well. Elixir's documentation is really awesome and one of the best I have seen. [0] - http://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/introduction.html http://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/introduction.html
    - StavrosK 10y ago
      Jesus... I saw that page. What I didn't see is the "next" link at the very bottom, right above the footer :( There's a whole bunch of stuff I haven't read! That page should be better designed... I think I also skipped the sentence below "running scripts", the one that says "chapter 2", because I skimmed later and it was just "here's where you can ask questions".
      - nkurz 10y ago
        I have no involvement in Erlang, but I just looked at that page, and as an outsider I would agree that the navigation could certainly be improved. I think a lot of the problem for me is that there is no distinction between the numbers for "Chapters" and for "Sections", and this confused me as to where I was in the progression. Maybe using numbers for chapters, letters for sections, and a 1.A notation for the headers? At the least, adding the chapter numbers to the header, so it says "1. Introduction"? Putting the chapter numbers in the URL would help too. So would adding some highlighting in the right column index to indicate the location of the current page. It seems like fantastic introductory material, but only if people can find it. Usually, the first thing do when I encounter a paginated manual like that is to search for a "single page" or "print" or "PDF" link. Is there one there that I couldn't find? If not, adding one might be a simple (partial) fix. Edit: If others have more (and better) suggestions, they can be added to the issue I filed here: https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir-lang.github.com/issues/822 https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir-lang.github.com/issues...
  - ocean3 10y ago
    Elixir has good starting guide. I was able to easily pick up reading from it. Book are further resources to learn.
    - StavrosK 10y ago
      Thanks, I seem to have missed the fact that there are multiple pages on that guide. Weird, because I saw that page again just now and thought "how is two paragraphs a good guide?" before noticing the contents on the side...
  - rdtsc 10y ago
    Oh sorry to hear that Stavros. Sometimes Erlang knowledge doesn't translate directly to Elixir, there are just a few conventions to keep in mind. I've used these before when playing with it: * http://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/introduction.html http://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/introduction.html * https://howistart.org/posts/elixir/1 https://howistart.org/posts/elixir/1 * Asking on #elixir-lang on freenode IRC Here is a specific chapter on distribution and nodes: http://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/mix-otp/distributed-tasks-and-configuration.html http://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/mix-otp/distributed-t... Their IRC channel, they were pretty helpful for me. And also I am sure they'd want to hear about your experience to also improve their docs and tutorials.
    - StavrosK 10y ago
      Thanks, the problem was that I didn't notice the rest of the pages on the guide :( I thought there was only the "installation" page.
- geodel 10y ago
  Yeah, I think Dart is failing and Go is succeeding because of Google backing.
eggy 10y ago
I have similar feelings about it, but I have chalked them up to the web-dev crowd where there are more numbers of Ruby/ROR devs flocking to it. It has the same uptake as Ruby/ROR did at certain times. Case in point, LFE (Lisp Flavored Erlang) was created by one of the original designers of Erlang, Robert Virding, has great support for a small FOSS project, true macros, but the popularity of Ruby has rocketed Elixir way ahead in terms of repositories and users. Erlang Solutions has it on the site, but it is not as touted as Elixir. People go with what they know, and let's admit it, Lisp is a great language, but not as popular in the web-dev crowd sans Clojure (which I don't see as so Lispy). From the early looks of it, having come from industry and academia, Pony lang looks poised to muscle in on Erlang/BEAM/OTP, Elixir and LFE anyway. I personally don't like the syntax, but syntax is not semantics, and you get over it. Popularity doesn't always win the day if you do something a bit more off the main road, and potential to earn more researching what you love: Look at qdb/k devs and jobs, and Haskell has started increasing in uptake by fintech. Go with what you like, or as Joseph Campbell said, 'Follow your bliss' and the rest will fall into place. But don't listen to me. I spend many waking moments fiddling with J (jsoftware.com). Not actually the most loved or known PL out there. I think the array languages J/APL/K/Q will have their day due to where software and hardware are heading: Multicores, array processing (GPU/FPGA hybrids, custom computers).
- sms854 10y ago
  > Case in point, LFE (Lisp Flavored Erlang) was created by one of the original designers of Erlang, Robert Virding, has great support for a small FOSS project, true macros LFE had no documentation, no tools, no learning resources for a really long time. Compare that to Elixir that focused on those aspects since day one. Furthermore, LFE has reached 1.0 only recently, almost 1.5 years after Elixir, and that has an impact on industry adoption. LFE also was, for a long time, literally Lisp-flavored Erlang while Elixir attempted from the beginning to bring its own abstractions such as protocols, collections, Unicode support, UTF-8 strings, and they are still pushing it forward: http://elixir-lang.org/blog/2016/07/14/announcing-genstage/ http://elixir-lang.org/blog/2016/07/14/announcing-genstage/ So I think you are selling both languages short. There is much more happening in Elixir besides the "popularity of Ruby" and there is a lot of potential in LFE now that they are focusing on being more than a "lispy" Erlang.
qaq 10y ago
Not sure why people would discuss it in Julia threads,but for Ruby and Crystal >50% of Elixir community came from Ruby so basically it's Ruby devs discussing newer alternatives to Ruby.
netghost 10y ago
Perhaps it's time to pick a new language to drop in every thread. Something hip and cool, like HyperTalk!

rdtsc 10y ago

> that if it wasn't FOSS I'd have decided it's being astroturfed. That's a good sign! You know why? Because it has a great community and is very friendly for new comers. Jose, Eric and the rest of the team made that a priority and it shows. It doesn't just mean being nice on IRC, it also means putting usability first, putting more effort in how example looks, how documentation looks and so on. If Google invented a language then proceed to push and sponsor it, by paying authors to work on it, organizing marketing, hackathons etc, then it is hard to say if it popular because of Google's backing or because it has its own merits.

StavrosK 10y ago
"Friendly for newcomers"? I tried to write something the other day, and had an Erlang developer friend to help me. The Elixir docs section just says "buy one of these books to get started", which is completely unacceptable, and we (mostly my friend, as I had no idea what anything is) spent an hour trying to figure out how to run a node, with Google not providing any useful answers. That's as hostile to newcomers as it gets. Contrast this with the Rust book, that gets you from "I have no idea how anything works" to "hey I just wrote a small program!" in a few minutes.
- iamd3vil 10y ago
  Elixir has a very good getting started guide[0]. I don't know if you have seen this or not. Even in the learning section, it recommends going through the getting started guide. It mentions other books in other resources. I don't know why you think it's hostile to new comers. I learned Elixir totally from Getting started guide and then the documentation. Then for OTP, I have read an Erlang book to understand it well. Elixir's documentation is really awesome and one of the best I have seen. [0] - http://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/introduction.html http://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/introduction.html
  - StavrosK 10y ago
    Jesus... I saw that page. What I didn't see is the "next" link at the very bottom, right above the footer :( There's a whole bunch of stuff I haven't read! That page should be better designed... I think I also skipped the sentence below "running scripts", the one that says "chapter 2", because I skimmed later and it was just "here's where you can ask questions".
    - nkurz 10y ago
      I have no involvement in Erlang, but I just looked at that page, and as an outsider I would agree that the navigation could certainly be improved. I think a lot of the problem for me is that there is no distinction between the numbers for "Chapters" and for "Sections", and this confused me as to where I was in the progression. Maybe using numbers for chapters, letters for sections, and a 1.A notation for the headers? At the least, adding the chapter numbers to the header, so it says "1. Introduction"? Putting the chapter numbers in the URL would help too. So would adding some highlighting in the right column index to indicate the location of the current page. It seems like fantastic introductory material, but only if people can find it. Usually, the first thing do when I encounter a paginated manual like that is to search for a "single page" or "print" or "PDF" link. Is there one there that I couldn't find? If not, adding one might be a simple (partial) fix. Edit: If others have more (and better) suggestions, they can be added to the issue I filed here: https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir-lang.github.com/issues/822 https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir-lang.github.com/issues...
- ocean3 10y ago
  Elixir has good starting guide. I was able to easily pick up reading from it. Book are further resources to learn.
  - StavrosK 10y ago
    Thanks, I seem to have missed the fact that there are multiple pages on that guide. Weird, because I saw that page again just now and thought "how is two paragraphs a good guide?" before noticing the contents on the side...
- rdtsc 10y ago
  Oh sorry to hear that Stavros. Sometimes Erlang knowledge doesn't translate directly to Elixir, there are just a few conventions to keep in mind. I've used these before when playing with it: * http://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/introduction.html http://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/introduction.html * https://howistart.org/posts/elixir/1 https://howistart.org/posts/elixir/1 * Asking on #elixir-lang on freenode IRC Here is a specific chapter on distribution and nodes: http://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/mix-otp/distributed-tasks-and-configuration.html http://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/mix-otp/distributed-t... Their IRC channel, they were pretty helpful for me. And also I am sure they'd want to hear about your experience to also improve their docs and tutorials.
  - StavrosK 10y ago
    Thanks, the problem was that I didn't notice the rest of the pages on the guide :( I thought there was only the "installation" page.
geodel 10y ago
Yeah, I think Dart is failing and Go is succeeding because of Google backing.

eggy 10y ago

I have similar feelings about it, but I have chalked them up to the web-dev crowd where there are more numbers of Ruby/ROR devs flocking to it. It has the same uptake as Ruby/ROR did at certain times. Case in point, LFE (Lisp Flavored Erlang) was created by one of the original designers of Erlang, Robert Virding, has great support for a small FOSS project, true macros, but the popularity of Ruby has rocketed Elixir way ahead in terms of repositories and users. Erlang Solutions has it on the site, but it is not as touted as Elixir. People go with what they know, and let's admit it, Lisp is a great language, but not as popular in the web-dev crowd sans Clojure (which I don't see as so Lispy). From the early looks of it, having come from industry and academia, Pony lang looks poised to muscle in on Erlang/BEAM/OTP, Elixir and LFE anyway. I personally don't like the syntax, but syntax is not semantics, and you get over it. Popularity doesn't always win the day if you do something a bit more off the main road, and potential to earn more researching what you love: Look at qdb/k devs and jobs, and Haskell has started increasing in uptake by fintech. Go with what you like, or as Joseph Campbell said, 'Follow your bliss' and the rest will fall into place. But don't listen to me. I spend many waking moments fiddling with J (jsoftware.com). Not actually the most loved or known PL out there. I think the array languages J/APL/K/Q will have their day due to where software and hardware are heading: Multicores, array processing (GPU/FPGA hybrids, custom computers).

sms854 10y ago
> Case in point, LFE (Lisp Flavored Erlang) was created by one of the original designers of Erlang, Robert Virding, has great support for a small FOSS project, true macros LFE had no documentation, no tools, no learning resources for a really long time. Compare that to Elixir that focused on those aspects since day one. Furthermore, LFE has reached 1.0 only recently, almost 1.5 years after Elixir, and that has an impact on industry adoption. LFE also was, for a long time, literally Lisp-flavored Erlang while Elixir attempted from the beginning to bring its own abstractions such as protocols, collections, Unicode support, UTF-8 strings, and they are still pushing it forward: http://elixir-lang.org/blog/2016/07/14/announcing-genstage/ http://elixir-lang.org/blog/2016/07/14/announcing-genstage/ So I think you are selling both languages short. There is much more happening in Elixir besides the "popularity of Ruby" and there is a lot of potential in LFE now that they are focusing on being more than a "lispy" Erlang.

qaq 10y ago

Not sure why people would discuss it in Julia threads,but for Ruby and Crystal >50% of Elixir community came from Ruby so basically it's Ruby devs discussing newer alternatives to Ruby.

netghost 10y ago

Perhaps it's time to pick a new language to drop in every thread. Something hip and cool, like HyperTalk!