[erlang-questions] Any Erlang Devs Contemplating Elixir?

[Siraaj Khandkar]

Brilliant analysis, Loïc!

Is this the Scott Adams post you're referring to?

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/136950092871/why-would-a-man-vote-for-hillary-clinton

Which is also quite brilliant in its observations - thanks for the pointer!


On 2/27/16 6:28 AM, Loïc Hoguin wrote:
> On 02/26/2016 09:21 PM, José Valim wrote:
>>     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].
>
> Rationally, Elixir is not Ruby, and Erlang isn't Prolog. Irrationally,
> it is. Elixir has the same look and feel as Ruby, and Erlang has the
> same look and feel as Prolog.
>
> When Ruby developers look at Elixir they feel right at home. If you call
> yourself a Ruby developer, then you identify with certain values from
> Ruby, many of which can be found in Elixir. It's familiar. Again, we are
> on the irrational level here.
>
> Same goes for Erlang and Prolog. In fact a few days ago a few long-time
> Prolog developers pointed out the exact same thing when they were
> talking about Erlang. There is this familiarity that smoothes them in,
> even though the languages are fundamentally different.
>
> The thing is, if you have to convince large groups of people, you need
> to appeal to their irrational mind. As Scott Adams brilliantly pointed
> out, identity beats analogy beats reason. If you want to convince people
> to come to Elixir, you need to appeal to their identity, which is why
> targeting Ruby on Rails developers is your best bet. If you don't then
> you're just wasting valuable time and resources.
>
> I've pointed out a few years ago that Elixir was for Ruby developers. I
> didn't know why at the time. If you look at the most recent survey
> (http://blog.elixirsips.com/2015/12/21/elixir-users-survey-2015/), you
> can see that Ruby developers dominate. Other languages are little more
> than a statistical anomaly. Clearly you bring in a lot more Ruby
> developers than any other combined, and the reason for that is identity.
>
> Stop fighting it. Use it to bring more people in.
>