My point was not that everything which is written in Elixir can be written in Erlang but mostly that using a reference to a system that sustains a large amount of traffic which is implemented in Elixir and runs on top of the Erlang virtual machine as an argument for how incredible Elixir is, is naive at best, as Elixir is just a layer on top of many Erlang libraries and also the Erlang virtual machine. Yes, syntax can matter, but you can discuss that later when you discuss maintainability and other software design and maintenance issues. You cannot discuss syntax and then argue that your program sustains large amounts of traffic; you can, but it’s pointless.

And to answer your first question, although I thought I was very clear that I do not want to take part in your discussion with the parent: no, I do not think that you are a bad programmer for learning Elixir, I think if you were to only learn Elixir, call it a day, and then spread the word of how incredible Elixir is, you would be, however. Programming languages are just that, programming languages. The more you know the better and there is no silver bullet. As you will get back to Haskell you will probably come to appreciate its powers. Also, the fact that you have not grasped Haskell’s syntax when you have first tried does not make it a poor functional programming language and it certainly does not make Elixir a better designed functional programming language. That’s just your perception because Elixir was, for you, easier to learn. The fact that I cannot comprehend particle physics does not necessarily make particle physics a badly designed model.