My understanding is that you can't set the variable per se. Rather, you can only bind a new variable with the same name, shadowing the old binding. This is very

My understanding is that you can't set the variable per se. Rather, you can only bind a new variable with the same name, shadowing the old binding. This is very similar to how let bindings work in other languages like OCaml and Scheme. So changing a is more akin to creating a new scope with a new value bound to a rather than mutating a. However, I should be clear that I'm just inferring this from how let statements work in other languages--I've never actually used Elixir.