Porting Functional Concepts to Elixir with Witchcraft

Brooklyn Zelenka, a distributed systems researcher, talks about how Witchcraft, Algae, and Quark libraries introduce functional programming concepts like monads and algebraic data types to the Elixir programming language. The main focus is on making these concepts feel idiomatic in Elixir while providing a gentle learning curve. Brooklyn details the history and motivation behind developing these libraries and shares insights on the challenges and lessons learned in porting these concepts. The talk includes an introduction by Magnus Sedlacek, an overview of the projects, design principles, and specific implementation details. Brooklyn also touches on the broader implications and future developments, including reflections on maintainership, community involvement, and evolving the project over time.