Discussion on Elixir's Future with José Valim

In this episode of Elixir Wizards, the creator of Elixir, José Valim, dives into a conversation with hosts Sundi Myint and Owen Bickford to explore what the coming years may hold for the Elixir programming language. Notably, Valim mentions the aspect of Elixir's extensibility, which allows for considerable growth in its rich ecosystem through new tools and libraries, with minimal changes needed to the core language. In his key takeaways, Valim speaks to the unique approach he has towards the planning of the ecosystem, essentially allowing it to develop organically through community contributions, rather than being heavily guided by the core team. This has evidently led to the flourishing and expansion of the Elixir community. He also reflects on the past decade of the language, covering improvements in documentation, educational tools like Livebook, and the advent of Elixir Nx for enhanced accessibility of data science and machine learning capabilities to Elixir developers. Moreover, Valim discusses the potential for a gradual type system to be implemented in Elixir, underscoring the critical nature of maintaining backwards compatibility. Finally, he talks about the instrumental role the community has played in shaping not just Elixir's development but its ecosystem, emphasising the pivotal role of open-source collaboration. The conversation also touches upon the much-anticipated question of whether Elixir 2.0 will emerge in the next ten years.