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Phoenix Creator Argues Elixir Is AI's Best Language

5 points by mooreds 1y ago

delaminator 1y ago
In an ironic twist, Claude tells me it is Rust because of the error messages. Each project I have tried a different language. It liked Racket but didn't think Typed Racket as really worth it. Erlang worked out well. It does pretty good at C#. But don't take my word for it > would you prefer erlang, rust, racket or c# ● Interesting comparison - these are very different tools. My preference would depend heavily on the problem: For What We Just Did [polling an API] I'd pick Erlang - and here's why this specific project validates that choice: 1. Long-running stateful service: Needs to run 24/7 polling aircraft data 2. Built-in state management: Mnesia for regions, rules, recent sightings 3. Concurrent by default: Multiple aircraft being processed, periodic polling, web server - all concurrent without thinking about it 4. Reliability matters: Missing aircraft alerts due to crashes would be bad; OTP supervision handles this But Generally? Rust would be my favorite overall: - Compile-time correctness catches whole classes of bugs that runtime systems miss - Performance without compromise - no GC pauses, predictable behavior - Modern ergonomics - cargo, excellent error messages, strong type inference - Growing ecosystem - tokio for async, axum for web, no longer as sparse as it was The catch: Rust's learning curve is real, and for rapid prototyping it can be slower. Racket is fascinating for: - Language-oriented programming - when you need to build DSLs - Exploratory work - REPL-driven development is wonderful - Education/research - the language tower concept is unique But it's too niche for production systems most of the time. C# I'd choose when: - Enterprise integration is critical - existing .NET infrastructure - Team familiarity - large pool of developers - Rapid development with good tooling - Visual Studio, LINQ, async/await But it feels heavy and tied to the Microsoft ecosystem. The Honest Answer For systems that must not fail (telecom, distributed databases, message queues): Erlang For performance-critical systems where correctness matters (OS components, embedded, infrastructure): Rust For most other things (web apps, APIs, tools, scripts): I'd probably reach for something lighter like Go or Python rather than any of these four.

5 points by mooreds 1y ago

In an ironic twist, Claude tells me it is Rust because of the error messages. Each project I have tried a different language. It liked Racket but didn't think Typed Racket as really worth it. Erlang worked out well. It does pretty good at C#. But don't take my word for it > would you prefer erlang, rust, racket or c# ● Interesting comparison - these are very different tools. My preference would depend heavily on the problem: For What We Just Did [polling an API] I'd pick Erlang - and here's why this specific project validates that choice: 1. Long-running stateful service: Needs to run 24/7 polling aircraft data 2. Built-in state management: Mnesia for regions, rules, recent sightings 3. Concurrent by default: Multiple aircraft being processed, periodic polling, web server - all concurrent without thinking about it 4. Reliability matters: Missing aircraft alerts due to crashes would be bad; OTP supervision handles this But Generally? Rust would be my favorite overall: - Compile-time correctness catches whole classes of bugs that runtime systems miss - Performance without compromise - no GC pauses, predictable behavior - Modern ergonomics - cargo, excellent error messages, strong type inference - Growing ecosystem - tokio for async, axum for web, no longer as sparse as it was The catch: Rust's learning curve is real, and for rapid prototyping it can be slower. Racket is fascinating for: - Language-oriented programming - when you need to build DSLs - Exploratory work - REPL-driven development is wonderful - Education/research - the language tower concept is unique But it's too niche for production systems most of the time. C# I'd choose when: - Enterprise integration is critical - existing .NET infrastructure - Team familiarity - large pool of developers - Rapid development with good tooling - Visual Studio, LINQ, async/await But it feels heavy and tied to the Microsoft ecosystem. The Honest Answer For systems that must not fail (telecom, distributed databases, message queues): Erlang For performance-critical systems where correctness matters (OS components, embedded, infrastructure): Rust For most other things (web apps, APIs, tools, scripts): I'd probably reach for something lighter like Go or Python rather than any of these four.