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Weird, on the Elixir forums and slack channels there seems to be a fair number of developers working or wanting to work in Elixir. Perhaps the initial uptake in

Weird, on the Elixir forums and slack channels there seems to be a fair number of developers working or wanting to work in Elixir. Perhaps the initial uptake in interest outpaced the developer interests in some areas. It'd be interesting to know what the community is like in Europe. Based on the recent formation of Dashbit [1] and larger companies like PepsiCo (?!) among others openly jumping onboard I think means Elixir has reached a clear point of sustainability for those willing to find (and train!) devs. Likely it'll never be RoR level, but I'm fine with that if it keeps the dev community more selective. Functional programming in general seems to be a bit of a self-selector. 1: https://elixirforum.com/t/jose-valim-announces-his-new-elixir-consultancy-dashbit/28414 https://elixirforum.com/t/jose-valim-announces-his-new-elixi...

lawik 7y ago
I think there is a touch of catch 22 in "are there enough devs? are there enough companies?" But from my end it looks to be improving. I've gotten going with doing it professionally and I hope to maintain that focus mostly.
ericsanchez 7y ago
I picked up _Programming Erlang_ because I like Joe. I'm trying to understand why the platform, and the accompanying language(s), aren't more widely used? People seem to speak very highly about Elixir, BEAM, and OTP. It all seems really great... I see comments like This: >A very interesting language on powerful platform with a promising web framework... I talked with a couple of companies that jumped on it initially, but later decided to move... And this: >I recently had a convo with a company that moved into Elixir because they had an easier time hiring... I see this comment pair somewhat often. Also, From @hajile >BEAM is about an order of magnitude faster than Cpython ...If you prefer Ruby syntax over Python, there is no contest here. >BEAM is slower than the JVM, but much more stable. The second quote seems to be a pretty reasonable trade off (my next question is, how much slower?). This makes a lot more sense to me: >Functional programming in general seems to be a bit of a self-selector. I like functional programming, but experiences do tend to be either: "I love FP" or "Eh, not for me." But are these it? I've been getting into erlang lately (to then get into elixir), but I feel like I've been "waiting for the other shoe to drop." As in, I'm wondering if there's some disadvantage that doesn't get talked about. Are there any engineering blogs that talk about using BEAM/Elixir/et al in production?
- dnautics 7y ago
  Honestly I think you are doing things backward. With all due respect to the fantastic platform and vm that the erlang folks built, it's just not as joyful as elixir. And I feel like writing legible and organized code is easier in elixir since it's opinionated, about everything from directory structure to documentation to tests, and a couple of detailey things like structs are easier to read than records and macros are more sensible than string preprocessing
  - cutety 7y ago
    Definitely agree, though I respect the effort/desire to learn Erlang first given the fact the first time I saw Erlang code I was so confused/put off by it, the syntax was so foreign (not c-like, not lispy), variable names up capitalized, atoms are bare words, source files are just tons of functions, the tooling isn’t anything like modern languages (though since Elixir and hex/mix, that situation has gotten way better), then you’ve got all the OTP behaviors which are entirely unique to Erlang/BEAM, Erlang’s documentation though excellent and extensive isn’t by any means beginner friendly (IMO), and to top it all off, unless you’re coming from another pure functional language you have to deal with working in a new paradigm. Basically, Erlang is intimidating, which is unfortunate because how powerful BEAM and the OTP behaviors are. However, Elixir wraps up the power of the BEAM and OTP in a much more approachable package. The syntax is much more familiar (thanks Ruby), provides tooling on par with (and better than some) popular modern languages, the language itself also provides more modern user friendly features (macros, pipe operator, protocols, etc). All with a community that is very beginner friendly and willing to help. If you want to make use of OTP/BEAM, Elixir is by far the best way to enter. When you learn Elixir, you will also learn the major OTP behaviors and concepts (Supervisors, GenServers, Applications, Registry). Eventually you’ll find that there are even more goodies in the beam not directly exposed by Elixir (genstatem, ets/dts/menisia,timer,digraph — are a few of my favorites). Fortunately though, you can call Erlang modules/code directly from Elixir (and vice-versa), so you’ll then eventually dip your way into playing with Erlang modules as needed and when you approach the docs after having experience with OTP with Elixir, you’ll notice a lot of things are familiar and the Erlang docs become much less intimidating. Basically Elixir is a much easier entry point to Erlang. Erlang is a great language, but very different with a lot of new concepts and which can kill your motivation to learn how awesome the BEAM is, so if you want to learn Erlang, by all means give it ago, but if you find yourself frustrated/confused with it, try Elixir for a while, then come back to Erlang and I bet it will be a lot easier. When I initially saw Erlang, I was put off, the docs were confusing and I would avoid them at all costs, always try to look for an Elixir wrapper. Now after having worked with Elixir a lot? I frequently find myself going to the Erlang docs first to find a solution instead rather than hex or whatever. I can easily grok my way through an Erlang projects source, which previously was completely foreign to me. Will I ever likely write anything serious in pure Erlang? Probably not. Am I saying if you learn Elixir you will also just pick up Erlang? Absolutely not. What it will do though is make the process of learning Erlang (if that’s the goal), and it’s absolutely massive built in library of tools/abstractions/patterns that no language I’ve seen comes close to replicating an order of magnitude easier.

lawik 7y ago

I think there is a touch of catch 22 in "are there enough devs? are there enough companies?" But from my end it looks to be improving. I've gotten going with doing it professionally and I hope to maintain that focus mostly.

ericsanchez 7y ago

I picked up _Programming Erlang_ because I like Joe. I'm trying to understand why the platform, and the accompanying language(s), aren't more widely used? People seem to speak very highly about Elixir, BEAM, and OTP. It all seems really great... I see comments like This: >A very interesting language on powerful platform with a promising web framework... I talked with a couple of companies that jumped on it initially, but later decided to move... And this: >I recently had a convo with a company that moved into Elixir because they had an easier time hiring... I see this comment pair somewhat often. Also, From @hajile >BEAM is about an order of magnitude faster than Cpython ...If you prefer Ruby syntax over Python, there is no contest here. >BEAM is slower than the JVM, but much more stable. The second quote seems to be a pretty reasonable trade off (my next question is, how much slower?). This makes a lot more sense to me: >Functional programming in general seems to be a bit of a self-selector. I like functional programming, but experiences do tend to be either: "I love FP" or "Eh, not for me." But are these it? I've been getting into erlang lately (to then get into elixir), but I feel like I've been "waiting for the other shoe to drop." As in, I'm wondering if there's some disadvantage that doesn't get talked about. Are there any engineering blogs that talk about using BEAM/Elixir/et al in production?

dnautics 7y ago
Honestly I think you are doing things backward. With all due respect to the fantastic platform and vm that the erlang folks built, it's just not as joyful as elixir. And I feel like writing legible and organized code is easier in elixir since it's opinionated, about everything from directory structure to documentation to tests, and a couple of detailey things like structs are easier to read than records and macros are more sensible than string preprocessing
- cutety 7y ago
  Definitely agree, though I respect the effort/desire to learn Erlang first given the fact the first time I saw Erlang code I was so confused/put off by it, the syntax was so foreign (not c-like, not lispy), variable names up capitalized, atoms are bare words, source files are just tons of functions, the tooling isn’t anything like modern languages (though since Elixir and hex/mix, that situation has gotten way better), then you’ve got all the OTP behaviors which are entirely unique to Erlang/BEAM, Erlang’s documentation though excellent and extensive isn’t by any means beginner friendly (IMO), and to top it all off, unless you’re coming from another pure functional language you have to deal with working in a new paradigm. Basically, Erlang is intimidating, which is unfortunate because how powerful BEAM and the OTP behaviors are. However, Elixir wraps up the power of the BEAM and OTP in a much more approachable package. The syntax is much more familiar (thanks Ruby), provides tooling on par with (and better than some) popular modern languages, the language itself also provides more modern user friendly features (macros, pipe operator, protocols, etc). All with a community that is very beginner friendly and willing to help. If you want to make use of OTP/BEAM, Elixir is by far the best way to enter. When you learn Elixir, you will also learn the major OTP behaviors and concepts (Supervisors, GenServers, Applications, Registry). Eventually you’ll find that there are even more goodies in the beam not directly exposed by Elixir (genstatem, ets/dts/menisia,timer,digraph — are a few of my favorites). Fortunately though, you can call Erlang modules/code directly from Elixir (and vice-versa), so you’ll then eventually dip your way into playing with Erlang modules as needed and when you approach the docs after having experience with OTP with Elixir, you’ll notice a lot of things are familiar and the Erlang docs become much less intimidating. Basically Elixir is a much easier entry point to Erlang. Erlang is a great language, but very different with a lot of new concepts and which can kill your motivation to learn how awesome the BEAM is, so if you want to learn Erlang, by all means give it ago, but if you find yourself frustrated/confused with it, try Elixir for a while, then come back to Erlang and I bet it will be a lot easier. When I initially saw Erlang, I was put off, the docs were confusing and I would avoid them at all costs, always try to look for an Elixir wrapper. Now after having worked with Elixir a lot? I frequently find myself going to the Erlang docs first to find a solution instead rather than hex or whatever. I can easily grok my way through an Erlang projects source, which previously was completely foreign to me. Will I ever likely write anything serious in pure Erlang? Probably not. Am I saying if you learn Elixir you will also just pick up Erlang? Absolutely not. What it will do though is make the process of learning Erlang (if that’s the goal), and it’s absolutely massive built in library of tools/abstractions/patterns that no language I’ve seen comes close to replicating an order of magnitude easier.