I was making a loose analogy to get the point across and also used the phrase "abstract machine model" for a reason. > It's more like Java -> Kotlin Not quit

I was making a loose analogy to get the point across and also used the phrase "abstract machine model" for a reason. > It's more like Java -> Kotlin Not quite true either. If you want to do the analogy of a VM-based language the BEAM is not just a VM like the JVM. It plus the rest of the ERTS is an AOS. > Not really. You can get quite far in Elixir without knowing any Erlang. True. But eventually when you do want to go outside of the Elixir ecosystem you need Erlang to access the BEAM facilities. The point was that Erlang is the "native language" of the "Erlang AOS" and is worth knowing whether you prefer Elixir/whatever on BEAM.