[erlang-questions] Any Erlang Devs Contemplating Elixir?

[Loïc Hoguin]

One of them. He's been writing a lot about this, especially in the past 
8-9 months. He's predicted nearly all the US Republican primaries so far 
and has been writing extensively about it, explaining everything in 
details. Very instructing. Highlights a lot about human behavior.

Anyway this is off-topic so feel free to email me off-list.

On 03/01/2016 03:30 PM, Siraaj Khandkar wrote:
> 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.
>>
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-- 
Loïc Hoguin
http://ninenines.eu
Author of The Erlanger Playbook,
A book about software development using Erlang