[erlang-questions] Any Erlang Devs Contemplating Elixir?

[José Valim]

> In my experience, it isn't the syntax that's hard to learn,
> but the concepts. and since most learning material is
> (at least so far) in Erlang, having to mentally translate
> that to Elixir would seem to make it harder, not easier.
>

While I would say this *was* a concern at some point, I am glad to say it
isn't one anymore. Since the beginning we have focused on very good
documentation, getting started experience and tooling[1]. We have books
that cover from the language up to OTP[2], screencasts[2], initiatives like
Elixir School in many languages[3], conferences and many more.

Surely at some point you will need to use Erlang libraries, but as you said
correctly, once that happens the developer will already be familiar with
the majority of concepts in a way everything Erlang has to offer is an
*addition* rather than a distraction, from Erlang books to Erlang
conferences. For example, I have heard a lot of Elixir developers praising
Erlang in Anger once they are running systems in production.


> But I may not be representative. Last time I counted I've
> used around 40 languages in anger over the years, yet
> I find Ruby bewildering.
>

I am not sure Ruby is relevant here. Elixir is not Ruby (and it could never
be in the Erlang VM). Elixir also isn't about Ruby syntax (the same way
Erlang isn't about Prolog syntax)[4].

[1] http://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/introduction.html
[2] http://elixir-lang.org/learning.html
[3] https://elixirschool.com/
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqo9-pQuRKE
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