[erlang-questions] Any Erlang Devs Contemplating Elixir?

[Loïc Hoguin]

On 02/27/2016 03:22 PM, José Valim wrote:
>
>     You also need to relativise these answers with the size of the
>     respective communities. Clearly you don't have much an impact on
>     Java or C developers, despite them being the largest numbers of
>     developers. You have a much bigger impact on Python, and yet nothing
>     close to Ruby, in comparison.
>
>     Interpretation of raw data is rarely insightful.
>
>
> You are still assuming all communities have had equal exposition to
> Elixir, which is just not true. It doesn't matter the size of the
> community if only a handful of developers heard about us. Maybe we have
> been really successful with the Python developers that heard of us,
> maybe even more than Ruby. Who knows?
>
> That's exactly my point. Don't jump into conclusions that it is a
> statistical error or that all adoption is identity centric. For certain,
> we have been longer at promoting Elixir in one of those communities.

I jump to conclusions as easily as I dismiss them. It's what I believe 
from looking at the survey, and not anything rational. I can change my 
mind in 10 minutes.

I'll change my mind right now. I'll posit that you attract both Ruby 
developers and Web developers. But I stand still on the identity 
(although I do admit there's other reasons, as I did in my first post).

I do believe it is easier and cheaper to target Ruby developers, though. 
And it is therefore quicker to grow, and quicker to diversify later on, 
if you get many Ruby developers in first. First, build an army, and then 
use that army to conquer the world.

> We do share the same impression about the Python community. :) I also
> associate them to the scientific community (ipython, pydata, etc).

I guess that despite being well aware of this, it isn't close enough to 
home that it would come up to my mind immediately. The brain is a 
strange machine.

Good talk.

-- 
Loïc Hoguin
http://ninenines.eu
Author of The Erlanger Playbook,
A book about software development using Erlang