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Why does it have to be a "major player"? :) Going the way of Scala, Clojure, etc is fine. If you have a community where people are innovating and/or enjoying th

Why does it have to be a "major player"? :) Going the way of Scala, Clojure, etc is fine. If you have a community where people are innovating and/or enjoying the journey, companies feel productive but invest and understand the pros and cons of the ecosystem, then to me it is all good. They estimate there are more than 20 million developers worldwide and, if a technology can reach 1% of that, I personally find that amazing (in the "super made it" kind of way). I am not saying this in a self-congratulatory way (especially cause we haven't reached it) but just generally. Anyone who worked on any sort of moderately used open source project has likely have gone through several rounds of "who is using it? anyone big?" and I wish people can appreciate the small victories rather than aiming to the highest of goals, which most projects will realistically (and understandably) not reach. If you or your company needs to reassure the accountant, then those languages are not for you, and there is nothing wrong with that. Other than that, your perspective of companies hiring for Elixir is drastically different than mine. :)

pg_1234 4y ago
I absolutely feel you have grounds for being self-congratulatory. But the linked article, and much of the discussion here, is really about persuading more people to adopt Elixir. Essentially people are being asked to tie a period of their professional career to the fortunes of a technology. Most of us code for money ... we have families to support etc. This is where a language becoming a "major player" becomes relevant, it's all about career investment. Part of the reason dev pays so well (for people who typically suck at salary negotiation) is the extreme mobility of programmers. However that does depend, to a degree, on the technologies you have experience with being widely used. Niche technologies can leave you somewhat trapped in your current job ... and the people negotiating salaries and raises for employers will inevitably exploit this. I liked it when Python had a smaller user base ... there was more of a "geek club" feel ... but there is no question that the remuneration for devs and the flexibility they enjoyed improved as adoption increased. So ... there are financial risks to adopting Elixir ... but, if more people adopted Elixir this risk would fall away ... a classic dilemma. The problem is that everyone pushing the tech seems to be glossing over this dilemma, and the risk it presents to the people being pitched to. Now much of this can be attributed to classic geek enthusiasm over a superior technology (caught up in idealism ... not always pragmatic), but not all. For sure, the cheerleaders for every new technology will do this, but it is still somewhat disingenuous. Right now I think this gap between tech idealism and career pragmatism may be the primary sticking point in increasing Elixir adoption ... but I feel it is wrong to try to bridge it but steering the next wave of adopters away from a realistic, informed assessment of the risks. Downplaying this is a step towards making fellow devs cannon-fodder in a mind-share battle.
- josevalim 4y ago
  > Niche technologies can leave you somewhat trapped in your current job ... and the people negotiating salaries and raises for employers will inevitably exploit this. I don't think the relationship is that simplistic. On [StackOverflow Survey for 2022][0], the top salaries were for Clojure, Erlang, F#, LISP and Ruby. Elixir comes in 6th and Python comes in 25th. Choosing a niche technology may be a way to increase your salary and have more leverage because you will become a specialist on a niche (an increase of more than 40% when going from Python to Clojure by measure of average salaries). Of course, it would be reductionist to say "learn Elixir and you will be paid more", but I also think it is inaccurate to say choosing a niche language is a certain trap. The best is to explore the companies, communities, and opportunities around you, especially in relation to which point you are in your career, instead of generalizing pros/cons as cheer-leading or blind optimism. 0: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2022/#developer-profile https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2022/#developer-profile
  - PKop 4y ago
    I think LiveView Native[0] could be very helpful in this regard, as per the project's goals, having ability to write mobile apps in the same language would greatly incentivize using it for web etc. Hopefully that project continues to make progress, I'm looking forward to it for Android development. [0] https://github.com/liveviewnative https://github.com/liveviewnative

pg_1234 4y ago

I absolutely feel you have grounds for being self-congratulatory. But the linked article, and much of the discussion here, is really about persuading more people to adopt Elixir. Essentially people are being asked to tie a period of their professional career to the fortunes of a technology. Most of us code for money ... we have families to support etc. This is where a language becoming a "major player" becomes relevant, it's all about career investment. Part of the reason dev pays so well (for people who typically suck at salary negotiation) is the extreme mobility of programmers. However that does depend, to a degree, on the technologies you have experience with being widely used. Niche technologies can leave you somewhat trapped in your current job ... and the people negotiating salaries and raises for employers will inevitably exploit this. I liked it when Python had a smaller user base ... there was more of a "geek club" feel ... but there is no question that the remuneration for devs and the flexibility they enjoyed improved as adoption increased. So ... there are financial risks to adopting Elixir ... but, if more people adopted Elixir this risk would fall away ... a classic dilemma. The problem is that everyone pushing the tech seems to be glossing over this dilemma, and the risk it presents to the people being pitched to. Now much of this can be attributed to classic geek enthusiasm over a superior technology (caught up in idealism ... not always pragmatic), but not all. For sure, the cheerleaders for every new technology will do this, but it is still somewhat disingenuous. Right now I think this gap between tech idealism and career pragmatism may be the primary sticking point in increasing Elixir adoption ... but I feel it is wrong to try to bridge it but steering the next wave of adopters away from a realistic, informed assessment of the risks. Downplaying this is a step towards making fellow devs cannon-fodder in a mind-share battle.

josevalim 4y ago
> Niche technologies can leave you somewhat trapped in your current job ... and the people negotiating salaries and raises for employers will inevitably exploit this. I don't think the relationship is that simplistic. On [StackOverflow Survey for 2022][0], the top salaries were for Clojure, Erlang, F#, LISP and Ruby. Elixir comes in 6th and Python comes in 25th. Choosing a niche technology may be a way to increase your salary and have more leverage because you will become a specialist on a niche (an increase of more than 40% when going from Python to Clojure by measure of average salaries). Of course, it would be reductionist to say "learn Elixir and you will be paid more", but I also think it is inaccurate to say choosing a niche language is a certain trap. The best is to explore the companies, communities, and opportunities around you, especially in relation to which point you are in your career, instead of generalizing pros/cons as cheer-leading or blind optimism. 0: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2022/#developer-profile https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2022/#developer-profile
- PKop 4y ago
  I think LiveView Native[0] could be very helpful in this regard, as per the project's goals, having ability to write mobile apps in the same language would greatly incentivize using it for web etc. Hopefully that project continues to make progress, I'm looking forward to it for Android development. [0] https://github.com/liveviewnative https://github.com/liveviewnative