I didn't look it up for this one specifically but usually those are when elixir is just directly applying a function from the core erlang module (ie erlang glob

I didn't look it up for this one specifically but usually those are when elixir is just directly applying a function from the core erlang module (ie erlang global fns). As for why they do that, rather than wrap them into the appropriate module, I have no idea. There may be a valid reason: for a language that is otherwise so careful about naming, organization, and consistency it would be a bizarre unforced error. Some of them have nonstandard (for elixir) names and parameter order too so they are definitely one of the few unpleasant quirks of the language.