The Role of Functional Programming in Erlang and Elixir for Robust and Maintainable Systems

José Valim explores the idea that functional programming in the Erlang VM isn't the end goal but a means to build distributed, fault-tolerant systems. He explains that Erlang's and Elixir's design focus on immutability, fault-tolerance, concurrency, and maintainability, rather than purely following functional programming principles. These languages leverage the Erlang VM and OTP platform to make complex parts of the system explicit, aiding in developer productivity and application robustness. Valim emphasizes the importance of choosing a platform that provides concurrency, robustness, and responsiveness from the ground up for building scalable and maintainable systems.