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Comment by ibraheemdev | Hacker News Reader

What José Valim has done in building an entire community around elixir single-handedly is absolutely incredible. Numerical Elixir looks amazing as well.

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He has been unbelievably but to say he did it alone is wrong. I think I would say those people who instead of being egotistical understood that Jose is usually right and changed their projects based on his suggestions are just as important. He’s managing to win important projects over to his way of thinking which is different than saying he did everything but arguably even more impressive.

José is an enormous asset to the community and has an influence on many of the marquee projects, but it definitely isn't single-handedly done. He cares about the ecosystem and is very generous with his time and attention.

Anecdotally speaking, he hasn't been hands on with Oban[1], yet he still offers advice and guidance around the project because it is in the Elixir community.

1: https://github.com/sorentwo/oban

Just sharing the link to your repo is a shameless plug. It would have been better had you shared a snippet of guidance/conversation in either github issue or elixirforum.

But I agree Jose is always helpful and the strongest pillar in the community.

Oban is enough of a standard in the community that it doesn't need any plugging. Very odd comment to pounce on.

"single handedly"? Really? Jose did a humongous work, but this is so dismissive of all the other people who put time and effort into building the ecosystem and the community.

While there are certainly other evangelists, and Erlang aficionados tend to engage too, I don't think I've seen any discussion of Elixir in a public forum where Jose hasn't been involved, giving well thought out, humble commentary.

As the founder of the language, the lead evangelist, and the main mouthpiece, yes, 'single handedly' may be hyperbolic, but only slightly. It's not to dismiss others' inputs, but it is to highlight how -insanely- engaged he is. I can think of no other language founder who has put in nearly the same legwork.

> I can think of no other language founder who has put in nearly the same legwork.

I don't pay particularly close attention these days, but I'd think Rich Hickey's involvement in Clojure over time, at least to the point Elixir is today, would be comparable.

In which case I'd say "singlehandedly" applies equally there, too. Still hyperbolic, but still representative of the degree of effort involved.

Good for him, and good for us. I really like elixir

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