Elixir 0.7.1 — A meta-programmable language built on the Erlang VM [video]

http://elixir-lang.org/blog/2012/11/18/elixir-v0-7-1-released-and-the-end-of-a-journey/

by devinus • 14 years ago

84 19 14 years ago

elixir-lang.org

codewright3• 14 years ago

People seem to mention Elixir a fair amount, but I haven't heard of anybody building anything with it.

One concern: Is it even slower than Erlang itself usually is?

devinus• 14 years ago

Negative. Elixir should be no slower than Erlang as it uses the same data types as Erlang. Elixir tuples are Erlang tuples, Elixir function calls are Erlang function calls, etc.

In practice, you may find that your Elixir code is even faster than the equivalent code you might write in Erlang. Elixir encourages some things like compiling some logic into your modules. For example, Dynamo compiles routes so they're super fast. String.Unicode is compiled from the UnicodeData.txt database itself[1].

[1] https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir/blob/master/lib/elixir...

mononcqc• 14 years ago

Weren't all Elixir records using proplists or orddicts? Isn't that slower than your usual data access that doesn't make use of them? Or did you find it had no impact in practice?

codewright3• 14 years ago

Okay, if I wanted to get started writing a webapp in Dynamo using Elixir, how do I start?

I looked at the GitHub repo and there didn't seem to be much.

All I could find was:

https://github.com/josevalim/dynamo/blob/master/examples/sim...

Can I mix a websockets server into a Dynamo app? Websockets are a key use-case for Erlang for me.

I've been looking into how to do a WS server on Erlang and this was the most modern example I could find: https://github.com/ostinelli/misultin/blob/master/src/misult...

To be frank: pretty fucking gnarly.

yrashk4• 14 years ago

I am building a lot of stuff with Elixir, both open source and commercial, including a commercial system for a customer

D9u• 14 years ago

Does anyone remember the old Xerox "Elixir" typesetting app?

z3phyr• 14 years ago

The look and feel is similar to ruby!

nirvana3• 14 years ago

I've just recently started working with Elixir for a major project. I actually like the Erlang syntax so don't need Elixir for the syntax, but for some other features that are useful for me.

The community around Elixir is small, but VERY good. Jose Valim is the kind of person who is an ideal community leader, and thus it's great to have him leading this effort.

This is the language that should be getting rockstar status (not Coffeescript, etc.)

Real erlang concurrency + the features Elixir offers makes it unbeatable.

Of course, I admit, I'm still in the "honeymoon" period with the language, so this could be hormones talking.

nirvana3• 14 years ago

Also, if you watch the video, at about the 30 minute mark he does a demo writing code on the spot... it's pretty cool.

Also, props to yrashk (HN handle) - part of why the elixir community rocks.

nivertech2• 14 years ago

It would be much safer for me to adopt Elixir if there was elixir2erlang source to source compiler, which produces readable Erlang code.

This is what makes adoption of CoffeeScript and TypeScript no brainer - you can always get back to plain readable JavaScript.

yrashk4• 14 years ago

This is a somewhat close possibility barring comments, as elixir produces erlang AST.

However, the AST it produces won't be perceived fully idiomatic style-wise (because of how some macros expand) so there might be not much value in this.

Also, without Elixir stdlib, such compilation would be useless as idiomatic Elixir normally includes use of Elixir stdlib.

For me, what makes it safe to adopt Elixir is the fact that worse comes to worse, I still have my .ex sources, they compile to valid beams, why should I care?..

nivertech2• 14 years ago

I care about unlikely, but still possible case, when Elixir tools like compiler and libraries, stopped to be supported, while standard Erlang VM and tools continue to evolve.

Hope to give it a try for smaller project.

acron0• 14 years ago

I've always thought the potential for Erlang technology in game servers is huge (as demonstrated in PikkoTekk - http://muchdifferent.com/?page=game-pikkotekk). Hopefully, _hopefully_, Elixir will go a long way to reducing the perceived barrier.

nnq• 14 years ago

..cool new language

...if only it allowed monkey patching and, bien sur, refinements to make them "manageable" :(

</sarcasm>

Elixir 0.7.1 — A meta-programmable language built on the Erlang VM [video]

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