Exploring Erlang Tracing and an Elixir Library for Easier Usage

Lars Wikman delivered a talk on Erlang tracing, highlighting its advanced and flexible observability tool, which allows runtime introspection without additional instrumentation. Despite the power of Erlang tracing, utilization is low among developers due to its complexity and the difficulty of getting started with the built-in tools. To make tracing more accessible, Wikman created an experimental Elixir library that abstracts the complexity away, offering a simpler interface and integrations like a web UI for intuitive usage. His library provides structured trace data, is configurable and optimizes for function calls. It comes with safety measures to prevent system overloads during tracing. Wikman also gives an overview of existing tools such as dbg, red bug, Recon Trace, among others, including their pros and cons, and discusses the potential applications of tracing in Elixir projects.