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  5. Elixir vs Kotlin

Elixir vs Kotlin

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Elixir
Elixir
Stacks3.5K
Followers3.3K
Votes1.3K
GitHub Stars26.0K
Forks3.5K
Kotlin
Kotlin
Stacks17.7K
Followers11.9K
Votes650
GitHub Stars51.5K
Forks6.1K

Elixir vs Kotlin: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this comparison, we will explore the key differences between Elixir and Kotlin in terms of their features, syntax, and use cases.

  1. Concurrency and Scalability: Elixir is known for its excellent support for concurrency and scalability, thanks to its underlying framework, the Erlang virtual machine (BEAM). Elixir provides lightweight processes, which are isolated and execute in parallel, making it highly efficient for handling concurrent tasks. On the other hand, while Kotlin does provide some support for concurrency, it is not as powerful or optimized for concurrent programming as Elixir.

  2. Type System: Elixir is dynamically typed, meaning that variable types are checked at runtime. This allows for flexible and dynamic programming, making it easier to write concise and expressive code. On the contrary, Kotlin is statically typed, offering strong compile-time type checking. This leads to more robust and reliable code but requires more explicit type annotations and strict type checking during development.

  3. Functional Programming: Elixir is a functional programming language inspired by Erlang and comes with several powerful features such as pattern matching, immutable data structures, and higher-order functions. This functional nature enables programmers to write clean, concise, and highly expressive code. Kotlin, although not purely functional, provides support for functional programming concepts like lambda expressions and higher-order functions. However, compared to Elixir, Kotlin's functional programming capabilities are more limited.

  4. Target Environments: Elixir mainly targets the backend development domain, especially for building scalable, fault-tolerant distributed systems and real-time applications. It is often used in the web development space, as well as in building chatbots and IoT applications. On the other hand, Kotlin is a general-purpose programming language primarily focused on providing a modern alternative to Java for Android app development. While Kotlin is now being adopted in other areas such as server-side development, its main strength lies in mobile app development.

  5. Tooling and Libraries: Kotlin benefits from its strong integration with the rich ecosystem of Java libraries and tooling. It provides easy interoperability with existing Java codebases and access to a vast range of well-established libraries. Elixir, on the other hand, has its own extensive ecosystem of libraries and tools, mainly driven by the Erlang ecosystem. It offers powerful frameworks for building distributed systems, messaging platforms, and real-time applications.

  6. Learning Curve and Community: Kotlin has a more gentle learning curve, especially for developers coming from a Java background, as it builds upon familiar concepts and syntax. It has a rapidly growing community and strong corporate support from JetBrains, the creators of Kotlin. Elixir, although not as widely adopted as Kotlin, has a vibrant and passionate community. Learning Elixir may require a shift in mindset for developers coming from object-oriented backgrounds, as it embraces functional programming principles.

In Summary, Elixir stands out with its excellent concurrency and scalability capabilities, dynamic typing, and functional programming features, primarily targeting backend development. Kotlin, on the other hand, focuses on being a modern alternative to Java, particularly for Android app development, offering a statically typed system and strong interoperability with Java.

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Advice on Elixir, Kotlin

Timm
Timm

VP Of Engineering at Flexperto GmbH

Nov 10, 2020

Decided

We have a lot of experience in JavaScript, writing our services in NodeJS allows developers to transition to the back end without any friction, without having to learn a new language. There is also the option to write services in TypeScript, which adds an expressive type layer. The semi-shared ecosystem between front and back end is nice as well, though specifically NodeJS libraries sometimes suffer in quality, compared to other major languages.

As for why we didn't pick the other languages, most of it comes down to "personal preference" and historically grown code bases, but let's do some post-hoc deduction:

Go is a practical choice, reasonably easy to learn, but until we find performance issues with our NodeJS stack, there is simply no reason to switch. The benefits of using NodeJS so far outweigh those of picking Go. This might change in the future.

PHP is a language we're still using in big parts of our system, and are still sometimes writing new code in. Modern PHP has fixed some of its issues, and probably has the fastest development cycle time, but it suffers around modelling complex asynchronous tasks, and (on a personal note) lack of support for writing in a functional style.

We don't use Python, Elixir or Ruby, mostly because of personal preference and for historic reasons.

Rust, though I personally love and use it in my projects, would require us to specifically hire for that, as the learning curve is quite steep. Its web ecosystem is OK by now (see https://www.arewewebyet.org/), but in my opinion, it is still no where near that of the other web languages. In other words, we are not willing to pay the price for playing this innovation card.

Haskell, as with Rust, I personally adore, but is simply too esoteric for us. There are problem domains where it shines, ours is not one of them.

682k views682k
Comments
Nick
Nick

Building cool things on the internet 🛠️ at Stream

Sep 5, 2019

Review

I work at Stream and I'm immensely proud of what our team is working on here at the company. Most recently, we announced our Android SDK accompanied by an extensive tutorial for Java and Kotlin. The tutorial covers just about everything you need to know when it comes to using our Android SDK for Stream Chat. The Android SDK touches many features offered by Stream Chat – more specifically, typing status, read state, file uploads, threads, reactions, editing messages, and commands. Head over to https://getstream.io/tutorials/android-chat/ and give it a whirl!

176k views176k
Comments
Zuriel
Zuriel

Jun 7, 2020

Needs advice

Can anyone help me decide what's best for app development or even android Oreo development? I'm in a state dilemma at the moment. I want to do Android programming, not necessarily web development. I have heard a lot of people recommend one of these, and it seems that both the tools can do the job. Which language would you choose?

291k views291k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Elixir
Elixir
Kotlin
Kotlin

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.

Kotlin is a statically typed programming language for the JVM, Android and the browser, 100% interoperable with Java

Statistics
GitHub Stars
26.0K
GitHub Stars
51.5K
GitHub Forks
3.5K
GitHub Forks
6.1K
Stacks
3.5K
Stacks
17.7K
Followers
3.3K
Followers
11.9K
Votes
1.3K
Votes
650
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 174
    Concurrency
  • 163
    Functional
  • 133
    Erlang vm
  • 113
    Great documentation
  • 105
    Great tooling
Cons
  • 11
    Fewer jobs for Elixir experts
  • 7
    Smaller userbase than other mainstream languages
  • 5
    Elixir's dot notation less readable ("object": 1st arg)
  • 4
    Dynamic typing
  • 2
    Difficult to understand
Pros
  • 73
    Interoperable with Java
  • 55
    Functional Programming support
  • 51
    Null Safety
  • 46
    Official Android support
  • 44
    Backed by JetBrains
Cons
  • 7
    Java interop makes users write Java in Kotlin
  • 4
    Frequent use of {} keys
  • 2
    Nonullpointer Exception
  • 2
    Hard to make teams adopt the Kotlin style
  • 1
    Slow compiler

What are some alternatives to Elixir, Kotlin?

JavaScript

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Python

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

PHP

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Scala

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Swift

Swift

Writing code is interactive and fun, the syntax is concise yet expressive, and apps run lightning-fast. Swift is ready for your next iOS and OS X project — or for addition into your current app — because Swift code works side-by-side with Objective-C.

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