4 ms·

You seem to be wrong, at least based on the quote you chose to use here, as Steve doesn't even mention anything related to functional programming?

kramerger 3y ago
Elixir is a functional language for the Erlang VM. Most C++/Java/Rust/... programmers wpuld have hard time understanding it. But if you are in a bubble where everyone uses Haskell and talks about Monads, then OPs statement may be valid
- yesco 3y ago
  I think Elixir is closer to an easier to read Lisp than to Haskell. In fact if someone claimed to know Rust, but couldn't figure out Elixir then I'd simply assume they were lying about their Rust experience.
- capableweb 3y ago
  Monads and Haskell is not a requirement to understand a functional programming language. Also, I find it hard to believe that anyone who knows N+1 programming languages would have a hard time understanding Elixir quickly, it looks like most mainstream programming languages used today, with slightly different syntax for some things. Take a look at https://elixir-lang.org/crash-course.html https://elixir-lang.org/crash-course.html and you'll see what I mean, it's basically Ruby with some slight modifications.
  - arrowsmith 3y ago
    As much as I love Elixir, it's really not just "basically Ruby with some slight modifications". The syntax is similar at a glance, but there are some major design differences (e.g. immutability); solving the same problem in Elixir and Ruby can require a completely different structure to your code. I wrote this blog post about what I think are the three most important differences between Elixir and Ruby: https://phoenixonrails.com/blog/elixir-for-ruby-developers-the-three-most-important-differences https://phoenixonrails.com/blog/elixir-for-ruby-developers-t... . There's definitely a learning curve, although it's not insurmountable.
    - skrebbel 3y ago
      No monads though. No pure functions, no Option types, pretty much no recursion in practice. Really it’s got none of the stuff that makes some FP languages hard to learn. (Except maybe “no for loops”).
      - arrowsmith 3y ago
        That's true - Elixir is simpler to learn than, say, Haskell. All I'm saying is that it's not a trivial jump from Elixir to Ruby, despite the superficially similar syntax.
        skrebbel 3y ago
        I don’t think eg ruby->go is a bigger jump. Learn defer, structural typing, interfaces vs learn to replace all loops with map/filter/etc + pattern matching. Feels similar, no?
  - GrinningFool 3y ago
    > it's basically Ruby with some slight modifications. It /looks/ like Ruby in a lot of ways, but treating it like Ruby w/ modifications is a mistake that I've seen lead to a lot of really bad usage that (at best) fails to take advantage of the underlying Beam VM, and at worst [and more commonly] actively works against it.
- AlchemistCamp 3y ago
  I picked it up pretty quickly as primarily a JS dev at the time. I’ve also worked on several projects where I’ve pair programmed with a dev new to the language. They’re usually pretty productive within a few days. Not writing their own DSLs or going deep into OTP, but productive in terms of writing application code. Phoenix is pretty straightforward for those who have experience with Rails, Laravel or a similar full-stack web framework.
- moomoo11 3y ago
  Don’t forget having to know beam and erlang especially if post junior/intern level where it’s more than just “it looks like ruby”
  - cpursley 3y ago
    I’ve used Elixir for half a decade and never had to dig into Erlang.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  Rust screams Erlang influence, but maybe it's just me. IIRC, in the beginning they even tried to put in a green threading VM for tail calls, which seems insane for something that you want to be a systems language.
  - steveklabnik 3y ago
    Early Rust was pretty expressly influenced by Erlang. The green threading runtime was removed in 2014, shortly before the 1.0.0 release in May 2015. The reason for the waning influence was exactly that: couldn’t be reconciled with systems use cases effectively.
  - sph 3y ago
    Native green threading instead of async/await would have made for a much more pleasant to use Rust language IMO. I hate async/await with a passion.

kramerger 3y ago

Elixir is a functional language for the Erlang VM. Most C++/Java/Rust/... programmers wpuld have hard time understanding it. But if you are in a bubble where everyone uses Haskell and talks about Monads, then OPs statement may be valid

yesco 3y ago
I think Elixir is closer to an easier to read Lisp than to Haskell. In fact if someone claimed to know Rust, but couldn't figure out Elixir then I'd simply assume they were lying about their Rust experience.
capableweb 3y ago
Monads and Haskell is not a requirement to understand a functional programming language. Also, I find it hard to believe that anyone who knows N+1 programming languages would have a hard time understanding Elixir quickly, it looks like most mainstream programming languages used today, with slightly different syntax for some things. Take a look at https://elixir-lang.org/crash-course.html https://elixir-lang.org/crash-course.html and you'll see what I mean, it's basically Ruby with some slight modifications.
- arrowsmith 3y ago
  As much as I love Elixir, it's really not just "basically Ruby with some slight modifications". The syntax is similar at a glance, but there are some major design differences (e.g. immutability); solving the same problem in Elixir and Ruby can require a completely different structure to your code. I wrote this blog post about what I think are the three most important differences between Elixir and Ruby: https://phoenixonrails.com/blog/elixir-for-ruby-developers-the-three-most-important-differences https://phoenixonrails.com/blog/elixir-for-ruby-developers-t... . There's definitely a learning curve, although it's not insurmountable.
  - skrebbel 3y ago
    No monads though. No pure functions, no Option types, pretty much no recursion in practice. Really it’s got none of the stuff that makes some FP languages hard to learn. (Except maybe “no for loops”).
    - arrowsmith 3y ago
      That's true - Elixir is simpler to learn than, say, Haskell. All I'm saying is that it's not a trivial jump from Elixir to Ruby, despite the superficially similar syntax.
      - skrebbel 3y ago
        I don’t think eg ruby->go is a bigger jump. Learn defer, structural typing, interfaces vs learn to replace all loops with map/filter/etc + pattern matching. Feels similar, no?
- GrinningFool 3y ago
  > it's basically Ruby with some slight modifications. It /looks/ like Ruby in a lot of ways, but treating it like Ruby w/ modifications is a mistake that I've seen lead to a lot of really bad usage that (at best) fails to take advantage of the underlying Beam VM, and at worst [and more commonly] actively works against it.
AlchemistCamp 3y ago
I picked it up pretty quickly as primarily a JS dev at the time. I’ve also worked on several projects where I’ve pair programmed with a dev new to the language. They’re usually pretty productive within a few days. Not writing their own DSLs or going deep into OTP, but productive in terms of writing application code. Phoenix is pretty straightforward for those who have experience with Rails, Laravel or a similar full-stack web framework.
moomoo11 3y ago
Don’t forget having to know beam and erlang especially if post junior/intern level where it’s more than just “it looks like ruby”
- cpursley 3y ago
  I’ve used Elixir for half a decade and never had to dig into Erlang.
pessimizer 3y ago
Rust screams Erlang influence, but maybe it's just me. IIRC, in the beginning they even tried to put in a green threading VM for tail calls, which seems insane for something that you want to be a systems language.
- steveklabnik 3y ago
  Early Rust was pretty expressly influenced by Erlang. The green threading runtime was removed in 2014, shortly before the 1.0.0 release in May 2015. The reason for the waning influence was exactly that: couldn’t be reconciled with systems use cases effectively.
- sph 3y ago
  Native green threading instead of async/await would have made for a much more pleasant to use Rust language IMO. I hate async/await with a passion.