4 ms·

quite a big gap between Elixir & Go though for most use cases.

by tschellenbach 8y ago

dpeck 8y ago
I don't disagree, but Im curious of the ones you're referring to
- wrestlerman 8y ago
  Not OP, but I've been interested in both technologies for a while. Elixir with Phoenix feels like modern RoR, so it's probably best suited for startups that want to build their products fast and want to scale easily and cheaper. IMO Go is perfect for big companies and somewhat middle companies where they have some heavy traffic that needs to be addressed. I guess Golang is also easier to start with and craft something very fast as opposed to Elixir. (You can check multiple topics on elixirforum.com where people ask why their first-iteration code is slower than that in ruby/python.) I can be wrong, but I haven't found any golang opinioned-matured web framework, because most of the community is okay with building from the ground up. This may suggest that golang would be preferable in complex/enterprise systems? I'd choose Elixir for something that has to be done fast and be reliable and open for a lot of modifications that can be introduced without sweating. My point of view is based on building some simple product in Elixir and doing research. Also, a previous company I worked for had Golang and Ruby stack.
cutety 8y ago
Would you be able to give an example or two where you would reach for go vs elixir and vice-versa? I’ve tinkered with Go, and while it was fairly enjoyable to work with on the small scale, but the lack of generics and constant err != nil checks, and Go 2 on the horizon, I decided to hold off on building anything non-trivial with it. I’m currently rewriting a Rails app into smaller elixir components, the Rails app is mostly consists of several potentially long running processes that gathers large amounts of data from various sources, does some light transformations, and then combines it and outputs it in various forms. Elixir has been immensely more pleasurable to write in, as OTP, along with things like GenStage and Flow, seem like a perfect fit for this task. And, while go’s channels are cool, they don’t seem nearly as powerful as elixirs actor model/OTP — at least for this example. The one advantage of Go I can immediately think of is using it for some networking heavy app, which is an area Elixir/Erlang has room for improvement, as making some simple outside http requests isn’t nearly as dead simple, iirc.
- chimen 8y ago
  Sure, here's a few, personal opinions: - Some programmers don't like functional programming (I'm not one of them) - Go has static typing and I find it really cuts away bugs - Go is backed by giants and has the horse power to push forward regardless of "Github stars" - Go is easy to compile and run on most/many platforms - I find myself more able to understand third party code As a web developer, would I use Go as opposed to Phoenix/Elixir? Yes, I am actually using it in production on a fairly big project [1]. I tried Phoenix and I found it "weird" for my liking. The authentication part of a web app was a real deal-braker for me = too complicated to implement (not bad, just too complicated). I'm the type of guy that brainstorms (90% of my projects are always "close to completion" though) a lot of ideas and wants to go up and running really fast. I can't do that with Python/Elixir/Ruby without many tests written because I don't trust the code/myself all that much. Where would I use Elixir/Phoenix: - a chat/support app or anything that relies heavily on websockets - real-time apps (related to first point) - apps that rely heavily on distributed tasks [1] https://typely.com https://typely.com
- orwin 8y ago
  I wrote a small supervisord ripoff in go just after its launch, it was at the same time frustrating and enjoyable. I will have a week off in less than a month, do you think i should build a similar elixir app just to learn the language? Or do you have any idea of a better well known programm to build to "learn" the language in a week?
  - wrestlerman 8y ago
    Don't want to be that guy, but imo one week is not enough to even "learn" Elixir. To be honest it depends on your previous experience, of course. But the problems is, that there a lot of books, but there are not that much code examples in the world. There are some Phoenix open sourced projects, but I didn't see that much OTP in them.
- weberc2 8y ago
  > the lack of generics Earnest question: isn't Elixir dynamically typed? If so, how is Go's type system worse? You can always drop down to `interface{}` (the dynamic type) if you like, after all. > And, while go’s channels are cool, they don’t seem nearly as powerful as elixirs actor model/OTP — at least for this example. I haven't used Elixir, but I suspect this is true. Elixir/Erlang are probably the only two languages that probably have a better concurrency story than Go; however, there are other facets (tooling, deployment story, learning curve, etc) to consider in choosing a programming language, and I think Go is a really strong language on balance.

quite a big gap between Elixir & Go though for most use cases.

dpeck 8y ago

I don't disagree, but Im curious of the ones you're referring to

wrestlerman 8y ago
Not OP, but I've been interested in both technologies for a while. Elixir with Phoenix feels like modern RoR, so it's probably best suited for startups that want to build their products fast and want to scale easily and cheaper. IMO Go is perfect for big companies and somewhat middle companies where they have some heavy traffic that needs to be addressed. I guess Golang is also easier to start with and craft something very fast as opposed to Elixir. (You can check multiple topics on elixirforum.com where people ask why their first-iteration code is slower than that in ruby/python.) I can be wrong, but I haven't found any golang opinioned-matured web framework, because most of the community is okay with building from the ground up. This may suggest that golang would be preferable in complex/enterprise systems? I'd choose Elixir for something that has to be done fast and be reliable and open for a lot of modifications that can be introduced without sweating. My point of view is based on building some simple product in Elixir and doing research. Also, a previous company I worked for had Golang and Ruby stack.

cutety 8y ago

Would you be able to give an example or two where you would reach for go vs elixir and vice-versa? I’ve tinkered with Go, and while it was fairly enjoyable to work with on the small scale, but the lack of generics and constant err != nil checks, and Go 2 on the horizon, I decided to hold off on building anything non-trivial with it. I’m currently rewriting a Rails app into smaller elixir components, the Rails app is mostly consists of several potentially long running processes that gathers large amounts of data from various sources, does some light transformations, and then combines it and outputs it in various forms. Elixir has been immensely more pleasurable to write in, as OTP, along with things like GenStage and Flow, seem like a perfect fit for this task. And, while go’s channels are cool, they don’t seem nearly as powerful as elixirs actor model/OTP — at least for this example. The one advantage of Go I can immediately think of is using it for some networking heavy app, which is an area Elixir/Erlang has room for improvement, as making some simple outside http requests isn’t nearly as dead simple, iirc.

chimen 8y ago
Sure, here's a few, personal opinions: - Some programmers don't like functional programming (I'm not one of them) - Go has static typing and I find it really cuts away bugs - Go is backed by giants and has the horse power to push forward regardless of "Github stars" - Go is easy to compile and run on most/many platforms - I find myself more able to understand third party code As a web developer, would I use Go as opposed to Phoenix/Elixir? Yes, I am actually using it in production on a fairly big project [1]. I tried Phoenix and I found it "weird" for my liking. The authentication part of a web app was a real deal-braker for me = too complicated to implement (not bad, just too complicated). I'm the type of guy that brainstorms (90% of my projects are always "close to completion" though) a lot of ideas and wants to go up and running really fast. I can't do that with Python/Elixir/Ruby without many tests written because I don't trust the code/myself all that much. Where would I use Elixir/Phoenix: - a chat/support app or anything that relies heavily on websockets - real-time apps (related to first point) - apps that rely heavily on distributed tasks [1] https://typely.com https://typely.com
orwin 8y ago
I wrote a small supervisord ripoff in go just after its launch, it was at the same time frustrating and enjoyable. I will have a week off in less than a month, do you think i should build a similar elixir app just to learn the language? Or do you have any idea of a better well known programm to build to "learn" the language in a week?
- wrestlerman 8y ago
  Don't want to be that guy, but imo one week is not enough to even "learn" Elixir. To be honest it depends on your previous experience, of course. But the problems is, that there a lot of books, but there are not that much code examples in the world. There are some Phoenix open sourced projects, but I didn't see that much OTP in them.
weberc2 8y ago
> the lack of generics Earnest question: isn't Elixir dynamically typed? If so, how is Go's type system worse? You can always drop down to `interface{}` (the dynamic type) if you like, after all. > And, while go’s channels are cool, they don’t seem nearly as powerful as elixirs actor model/OTP — at least for this example. I haven't used Elixir, but I suspect this is true. Elixir/Erlang are probably the only two languages that probably have a better concurrency story than Go; however, there are other facets (tooling, deployment story, learning curve, etc) to consider in choosing a programming language, and I think Go is a really strong language on balance.