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No, it is not like coffeescript:javascript. Coffeescript compiles to javascript source code, which is then turned into bytecode by the VM. Elixir is _NOT_ compiled to Erlang source code; rather, it is compiled directly to BEAM bytecode.

So the clojure:java comparison is accurate.

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Actually, it compiles to Core Erlang, which compiles to BEAM bytecode.

Core Erlang is pretty unreadable though, so I do think it's a bit more complex than CoffeeScript.

Elixir also gives you really cool meta-programming tools, a way to extend the language, that aren't part of CoffeeScript.

I can't say for sure, but I don't think it would be impossible to add that kind of capability to coffeescript, but you are right that right now coffeescript can't do that

Some people tried IIRC but they never got very far. One reason could be that syntactic abstraction is generally not in great demand, but could be something else entirely. Also, take a look at Sweet.js

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