Agreed. It's just syntax, similar to implicit keywords (mentioned already) and & anonymous functions[0]. Pattern matching a large number of items off a map is

Agreed. It's just syntax, similar to implicit keywords (mentioned already) and & anonymous functions[0]. Pattern matching a large number of items off a map is verbose. Putting many new keys in a map can be verbose if they're existing variables. I'd rather have shorter code that was just as readable than many lines that add to cruft. [0] Reading `&%{foo: &1.bar}` as a new Elixir dev looks like character soup and is arguably more magical.