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> The community has proven to be sustainable, with ample social proof of further adoption and conditions amenable to generational succession It depends on how
by Dowwie 3y ago
> The community has proven to be sustainable, with ample social proof of further adoption and conditions amenable to generational succession
It depends on how you measure sustainable. What would happen to Elixir without its BDFL? Has Elixir achieved escape velocity and will continue? Rust was pushed out of the Mozilla nest and managed to live on. I don't see a similar capacity for Elixir handling such existential risk. Are there succession plans? Is there mentoring among members of the core?
I also think that it's necessary to point out that just because OTP facilitates resilience doesn't mean that the system you'll build with it will exhibit that behavior. You have to design your system to use OTP effectively. Easier said than done. I've seen Elixir systems reach a critical failure state following maximum restarts of its internal processes. However, at least Elixir has the potential of being hardened. It's just not going to act as expected without a lot of up front wisdom applied.
- evadne 3y agoAgreed. There is no alternative to thinking. However a good collection of conventions, primitives & building blocks, can assist greatly in architecting a robust system. We do test systems to the point of breakage. It is not something we skip just because the language is good. As to existential risk: I will try to be succinct. If there has been no exposure then there is no need to hedge. Further, there are commercial firms which will maintain your critical systems. In other words, a long term maintenance contract for Elixir systems can be procured from more than one source.