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People will do anything except actually try Elixir. :D ...I mean: pipes, immutability, transparent mega-parallelism... helloooo? I tried F# some years ago (af

People will do anything except actually try Elixir. :D ...I mean: pipes, immutability, transparent mega-parallelism... helloooo? I tried F# some years ago (after I was fired from a shop that decided they will go all-in on Java and F# and dropping everything else overnight) and I was not impressed. I mean the language is really nice but the C# baggage and runtime was just a bit much. And I was not left convinced that immutability alone is worth the switch. I suppose we can call F# an FP gateway drug? Now arguably you get a runtime and some baggage from the Erlang runtime (the BEAM VM, where Elixir also runs), but the guarantees and features you get are invaluable, and have proven themselves many times over the last literal three decades.

weakfish 2y ago
The shop went all in on Java and F#? Why not C# and F#? That’s really odd, unless there’s context I’m missing.
- pdimitar 2y ago
  I wish they told me. They cut ties with most of their previous devs overnight, as if we were some enemies. Weirdest firing in my life and career to this day.
  - weakfish 2y ago
    That’s truly bizarre. Glad you’re out of that situation, doesn’t sound quite healthy from what you’re saying.
BiteCode_dev 2y ago
If one need to get on Beam, is it better to start on Elixir or Gleam?
- pdimitar 2y ago
  Elixir's ecosystem is much farther ahead than Gleam, so if you want to actually achieve stuff without pauses to fill the gaps yourself, then Elixir is the way to go. And don't get me wrong, I love the idea of Gleam, a lot (Rust syntax, strong static typing, what's not to love?). But my PL early adopter days are over.
johnnyjeans 2y ago
> Elixir For me, it's Erlang. I just really like its horn clause syntax, it's so clean and readable. I know a common complaint is lack of piping (and even though you can implement it trivially, the order of arguments for some functions makes it of dubious use) but it's a small price to pay. > I mean the language is really nice but the C# baggage and runtime was just a bit much This was my experience with F#. Frankly, I've never been happy with my experience with CLI on Linux, and the toolchain inherits a lot of baggage from its C# heritage. Microsoft's toolchains have a very distinct workflow to them. F# has some interesting aspects to it like active patterns (something I wish was more common in the ML-family), but tbh I'm more than happy with ocaml.
- innocentoldguy 2y ago
  I can't remember which version of Erlang was the most current when I started learning Elixir, but I do know that it was years before OTP 20, which fixed its string issues. Prior to that, Erlang didn't have very good string support for internationalization (I do a lot of Japanese language programming). Elixir, on the other hand, did. Otherwise, I may have gone with Erlang back then. I like Erlang a lot, too. Both are great languages.
xigoi 2y ago
Elixir is dynamically typed, which presumably many people are put off by.
- pdimitar 2y ago
  Yes, I agree that it's a big drawback. Elixir made me more productive and gave me back my love for programming, and I work with it professionally for 9 years now. But the lack of static typing is getting so irritating that I started upping my efforts to get [even] better at Rust lately. So I agree. It's one of the very top drawbacks of Elixir.

weakfish 2y ago

The shop went all in on Java and F#? Why not C# and F#? That’s really odd, unless there’s context I’m missing.

pdimitar 2y ago
I wish they told me. They cut ties with most of their previous devs overnight, as if we were some enemies. Weirdest firing in my life and career to this day.
- weakfish 2y ago
  That’s truly bizarre. Glad you’re out of that situation, doesn’t sound quite healthy from what you’re saying.

BiteCode_dev 2y ago

If one need to get on Beam, is it better to start on Elixir or Gleam?

pdimitar 2y ago
Elixir's ecosystem is much farther ahead than Gleam, so if you want to actually achieve stuff without pauses to fill the gaps yourself, then Elixir is the way to go. And don't get me wrong, I love the idea of Gleam, a lot (Rust syntax, strong static typing, what's not to love?). But my PL early adopter days are over.

johnnyjeans 2y ago

> Elixir For me, it's Erlang. I just really like its horn clause syntax, it's so clean and readable. I know a common complaint is lack of piping (and even though you can implement it trivially, the order of arguments for some functions makes it of dubious use) but it's a small price to pay. > I mean the language is really nice but the C# baggage and runtime was just a bit much This was my experience with F#. Frankly, I've never been happy with my experience with CLI on Linux, and the toolchain inherits a lot of baggage from its C# heritage. Microsoft's toolchains have a very distinct workflow to them. F# has some interesting aspects to it like active patterns (something I wish was more common in the ML-family), but tbh I'm more than happy with ocaml.

innocentoldguy 2y ago
I can't remember which version of Erlang was the most current when I started learning Elixir, but I do know that it was years before OTP 20, which fixed its string issues. Prior to that, Erlang didn't have very good string support for internationalization (I do a lot of Japanese language programming). Elixir, on the other hand, did. Otherwise, I may have gone with Erlang back then. I like Erlang a lot, too. Both are great languages.

xigoi 2y ago

Elixir is dynamically typed, which presumably many people are put off by.

pdimitar 2y ago
Yes, I agree that it's a big drawback. Elixir made me more productive and gave me back my love for programming, and I work with it professionally for 9 years now. But the lack of static typing is getting so irritating that I started upping my efforts to get [even] better at Rust lately. So I agree. It's one of the very top drawbacks of Elixir.