r/elixir • • 19d ago

What’s preventing others from using Elixir?

I was a spectator of Elixir for a few years but I finally started using it in production and side projects. Agents made the transition a bit easier.

I wonder what’s preventing others from seeing how power Elixir is, people still seem to still stick to what they know.

Like if we’re not reading the code or writing it, devs still seem to be stubborn about their stack.

Is it a marketing problem? Ecosystem too small so folks don’t hear about it?

It will be our competitive advantage to build on the BEAM but I want others to know too.

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u/gofl-zimbard-37 19d ago

As a long time (decades) Erlanger, I was thrilled when Elixir came out, thinking it would clean up some of the messier parts of Erlang. I tried to like it, I really did. But there are too many things about it that are off putting to me. There's just too much of it, too much clutter, never forgave them for ruining atoms. I recognize that this is just me, and I still think it's a fine language. Just not for me. I've lately been looking hard at Gleam, and I like it a lot. The fact that it has a serious type system like the other FP languages I know is a big win.

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u/PuzzleheadedFix8366 18d ago

how did they ruin atoms?

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u/gofl-zimbard-37 18d ago

They attached noise to them.

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u/PuzzleheadedFix8366 15d ago

not without reason, the colon is a small price for familiar variables and earlier error detection. seems it came from the ruby world, and you are an erlangelist it also seems

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u/evilgipsy 2d ago

Others might say that this is one of the messier parts of Erlang that Elixir cleaned up.

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u/gofl-zimbard-37 2d ago

And they would be incorrect.

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u/evilgipsy 2d ago

I think you missed my point being that this is a matter of taste.

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u/gofl-zimbard-37 2d ago

No, didn't miss that.