Improving Error Handling in Elixir

The article delves into common challenges faced by Elixir developers when it comes to handling runtime errors, emphasizing that the usual 'Let it crash' philosophy might lead to overlooking essential error handling. The authors criticize using strings to represent errors due to their fragility in pattern matching and suggest better practices. They recommend using atoms for error representation but also recognize their limitations, such as lack of human readability and additional error-specific information. The article proposes a combination of atoms with maps for error representation to improve debugging and reliability. Above all, the authors introduce 'ErrorMessage', a structure for standardizing error messages across systems to offer clarity, uniformity, and detailed information for easier debugging. The 'ErrorMessage' library has been proven effective in enhancing error handling in Elixir applications, underlining the importance of treating errors as first-class citizens in application development.