October 01, 2021

Transitioning to Elixir for Backend Development

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Transitioning to Elixir for Backend Development

Source: leemeichin.com

Lee Meichin recently embarked on a new career path with a company that primarily utilizes Elixir for backend programming. Although new to Elixir and Erlang, familiarity with Prolog smoothed the transition. The pleasing syntax of Elixir, heavily influenced by Ruby, made it relatively easy for Meichin to learn the language. Elixir offers an immutable, functional programming experience without the complications of a static type system, circumventing the maintenance challenges often associated with mutable state found in object-oriented programming (OOP). Meichin appreciates Elixir's efficient support for Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) through compile-time macros which simplifies error handling during the development process. Additionally, Elixir's syntax, particularly the pipeline and 'with' expressions, contribute positively to the programming experience, though Meichin expresses a preference for Clojure's threading operators. The introduction of the 'Result' tuple is a favored feature, enabling a clear separation between the successful and error pathways within a function. Overall, after three months of working with Elixir, Lee Meichin expresses genuine enthusiasm for the language, drawing parallels to the joy of programming in Ruby.

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