Why Elixir Is the Programming Language You Should Learn in 2020 | Hacker News Reader

Why Elixir Is the Programming Language You Should Learn in 2020

erlang-solutions.com

47 pointslobo_tuerto18 comments

I like Elixir and tried it out a few years ago. I would learn Erlang if going back now. The trouble with both for me is that if you are not developing to a fault-tolerant specification and need number crunching, the Erlang family of PLs are not performant. Yes, you could use NIFs written in Zig, but that's like using Python and calling all those C libs and functions. Elixir is great in that it is being used for full stack development with the likes of Phoenix and the BEAM/OTP, this is a good thing. I was interested in Nerves back then too, and I had read most of the book "The Handbook of Neuroevolution Through Erlang", and while greatly informative and fun, I am now back with C, Zig, J, extempore's xtlang, and F#. I am looking into HPC with UNUMS and Elixir and Erlang just don't fit my personal projects. I do like them though, but I would probably choose LFE for personal fun and Elixir for employment.

According to comments on a recent Ask HN post[0], most of the opportunities to use Elixir in industry are for consultants either (1) supporting subsystems abandoned by corporate employees who have moved on, or (2) assisting companies to migrate from Elixir to a solution easier to hire for, to avoid expenses and limited availability of help with (1).

Upsell opportunity would be to offer (2) after delivering (1).

[0] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23283675>

The link is broken by the ">" at the end.

While you are right, the thread was explicitly named "Who regrets choosing Elixir", so I think there's a bias in the responses.

Many of my customers are using Elixir for new startups or new projects. Probably over half.

Future consulting gigs FTW!

"Ask HN: Who regrets choosing Elixir?" You _would_ expect that post to be mostly failure stories.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23283675

"Rewarding Career Progression"

> As a result, Elixir developers have the opportunity to work for wide spectrum of companies such as PepsiCo, Pinterest, Lonely Planet or MBTA.

Sorry but, it's not clear how listing a few "tech" companies indicates a "rewarding career progression"? Can anyone elaborate?

So you don’t dream of working as a software developer at PepsiCo?

My application to CocaCola got rejected, but I guess Pepsi is fine too. ;)

Unfortunately, without static typing, I can't use Elixir, no matter how good they say Dialyzer is. I've been using Rust these days because it has algebraic data types.

This is a very generic, low value dismissal that has little to do with Elixir in general. In fact, due to its immutability, use of struts and pattern matching it's the safest dynamic language I've ever worked with.

Six of YC's most successful ten companies built on Ruby, a dynamic mutable language with method missing and monkey patching. Just because you can't use a dynamically typed language doesn't mean they're not useful for anyone.

That is what I said, that I can't use Elixir. And I have used Elixir before, often learning via your tutorials. This comes just from my personal experience, not to be taken as a dismissal of the language as a whole. Of course, many people use Elixir and Erlang, and Whatsapp even built a 50 billion dollar business out of it before acquisition.

Fair enough! To each their own. FWIW, I've been getting pretty into Rust this year, too (for WASM and NIFs).

... by erlang-solutions.com.

All they're missing is several fake user accounts on the comment section praising the article with fake reviews.

There is nothing specific in article, all those points apply to alomost all modern languages Go, Rust, Kotlin

We have been using Elixir for years, going on more than a half dozen projects in production now.

It’s been excellent and a pleasure to work with. We’re currently hiring remote contractors (US only) for our Covid related projects. Get in touch!

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