The introduction of Mix.install in Elixir 1.12 was huge. Prior to that single file Elixir scripts could only use the standard library, which is decently sized,

The introduction of Mix.install in Elixir 1.12 was huge. Prior to that single file Elixir scripts could only use the standard library, which is decently sized, counting Erlang but notably misses a good HTTP client and JSON encoding/decoding. Despite using Elixir at my day-job and loving the language in a production environment, I had written off Elixir for scripting and throwaway work until then. But now, I love it! Mix.install([:req]) at the top and you've got an easy to use, great basis for scripts. Toss in Livebook and you're well on your way to a wonderful exploratory environment. I've moved off having an open iex window to having a scratch Livebook open, and it's great for little explorations. I've been using it whenever I need to work with my company's API, and over time the little helper modules and functions have been evolving. I almost feel like pretty soon it might as well package it up and release them as a full-fledged Elixir library for use with the API.