Elixir 1.0.5 released

https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir/blob/3eb938a0ba7db5c6cc13d390e6242f66fdc9ef00/CHANGELOG.md#v105-2015-06-29

by gandarojin • 11 years ago

133 28 11 years ago

jfaucett• 11 years ago

Haven't looked at elixir yet, but being an erlang fan and quickly hopping through the source it looks like elixir is doing for erlang essentially what coffeescript does to javascript. Something many non-erlangers have long lamented is the syntax so this looks quite interesting, also adding the running compiler is a nice idea for the macro support :)

josevalim3• 11 years ago

Hi, Elixir creator here, thanks for commenting! You may want to watch my talk at Erlang Factory SF 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqo9-pQuRKE

Elixir is not really about the syntax, we have great tooling, our own standard library (with proper Unicode support, collections, unified API for dictionaries, etc) and our own approach to some constructs in OTP.

Feel free to ping here if you have any questions. I will make sure to check this thread again later.

benaiah• 11 years ago

The independent stdlib is interesting, and I haven’t seen Elixir advocates mention it much before. I’ll have to look into that.

ghayes• 11 years ago

On tooling: `Mix` is a great build tool which directly integrates `Hex`, a package manager similar to ruby gems. Additionally, ExUnit is a great built-in unit test library. These tools alone would be a good reason for an erlanger to check out Elixir.

I've been recommending Elixir as the language of choice to all my colleagues. I truly believe it will bring the advantages of OTP architecture to a wider audience of programmers.

ffn• 11 years ago

Love the language, I've been using it (phoenix) to build a more real-time version of my current rails app. But I have a concern with Elixir core's Enum. In particular, the Enumerable protocol has us implementing Enum.reduce for our own data-types, but Enum.map is written as

`reduce(collection, [], R.map(fun)) |> :lists.reverse`

is there any chance Elixir's enum core can take a page from Clojure's transducer idea and, instead of implementing map with reduce and [], implement it with transduce and some function that steps?

I've often had the need to map and filter over strings to achieve rails-like features such as #to_url, #classify, #underscore, and #humanize... but being forced to either rewrite Enum functions for strings or constantly peppering in String.split("") and Enum.join("") feels really bad.

yellowapple3• 11 years ago

Elixir is not really about the syntax

Don't lie, Jose; we all know it's about the syntax ;)

Kudos for the awesome language you've created.

pselbert• 11 years ago

Elixir's syntax also gains a wonderfully consistent AST, which enables all manner of meta-programming and macro writing. Sometimes there are practical benefits to syntactical choices beyond the pleasing aesthetics.

Xophmeister2• 11 years ago

I've been reading about Elixir here-and-there for a while and decided to jump into it last week. I really like it. I'm a big fan of FP and, having increasingly found myself falling out with Python, can definitely see this becoming my dynamically typed language of choice.

fokinsean2• 11 years ago

Would you recommend Elixir for a first FP language? I am familiar with FP from using Python and JavaScript, but I have never used a completely functional language yet. Can I dive into Elixir or should I learn something more "traditional" first such as Haskell, Lisp, etc?

jimbokun• 11 years ago

With this book:

https://pragprog.com/book/elixir/programming-elixir

I would say it's an outstanding choice to learn functional programming. The book is written for someone who knows an imperative language and wants to learn about functional programming.

Xophmeister2• 11 years ago

My current feeling [bearing in mind that it's been less than a week!] is that Elixir is to Haskell as Python is to C++. If you want to learn a dynamically typed FP language, then I think Elixir is a fine choice; especially from a JS/Python background, plus all the goodies that come with the Erlang VM. I've read it's also good for metaprogramming, so it ticks the same boxes as Lisp, without having to get used to S-expressions!... It's certainly something you can dive into :)

Then, if you find you're really in to the FP Kool-Aid, I would definitely give Haskell (or OCaml) a try as well. It's a completely different ball game, but even as just a beginner -- I kinda-sorta-understand monads -- I would say that it's already improved my general programming skills.

yellowapple3• 11 years ago

I personally didn't understand FP at all until I played around with Erlang (specifically, the "Learn You Some Erlang" book). I reckon Elixir would be similarly enlightening (if not more; I feel like Elixir's macros are easier to wield than most Erlang equivalents, for example).

The friendly, consistent syntax and the imperative-ish constructs in some places can work as a great stepping stone into the rest of the functional/declarative programming world.

arms2• 11 years ago

I'd love to read about people's real life uses of Elixir, whether it be for their jobs or side projects.

vezzy-fnord• 11 years ago

I can't see how they would be much different from the use cases of Erlang/OTP, of which there are plenty of stories.

arms2• 11 years ago

I'm interested in more than just the use cases (although still curious to hear why someone chose Elixir, whether it be for the language, BEAM, or whatever.) I'm looking for stories of why it was chosen over another language and what the end results were.

doomspork• 11 years ago

I'm currently keeping a list of companies actively using Elixir in production that you mind find useful: https://github.com/doomspork/elixir-companies

josevalim3• 11 years ago

You can also check out conference videos:

* Elixirconf EU 2015: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWbHc_FXPo2jBXpr1IjyU... (at least Michael's and Claudio's talks)

* Elixirconf 2014: http://confreaks.tv/events/elixirconf2014 (at least Martin's and Stephen's)

tim333• 11 years ago

Here's one from Taskworld

http://qr.ae/7WaM8X

sivers2• 11 years ago

I sponsored the OpenBSD port of Elixir 1.0.5 & Erlang 18:

http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/ports/lang/elixir/

So it'll be included in OpenBSD 5.8.

reitzensteinm• 11 years ago

That's awesome! Could I ask why? Are you using it to build anything public?

sivers2• 11 years ago

Hopefully some day! ☺

All my programming is public, so if I ever start making something with it, it'll be at https://github.com/sivers

But I'm a fan of OpenBSD, and like to make sure it stays current. I've contributed a few thousand $ over the years to help.

And I'm a fan of Dave Thomas from Pragmatic Programmers, so when I heard him raving about Elixir, I had to give it a try. I like it so far.

Good overview video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hht9s6nAAx8

Good books:

"Introducing Elixir - Getting Started in Functional Programming"

http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920030584.do

"Elixir in Action"

http://www.manning.com/juric/

"Programming Elixir"

https://pragprog.com/book/elixir/programming-elixir

yellowapple3• 11 years ago

Thanks! That should (hopefully) put an end to me having to build both of those things from source (as another user of both OpenBSD and Erlang/Elixir).

zcid• 11 years ago

Thank you so much!

I just noticed the Erlang port yesterday; it was a most pleasant surprise.

Elixir 1.0.5 released

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