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  5. Elixir vs Elm

Elixir vs Elm

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Elixir
Elixir
Stacks3.5K
Followers3.3K
Votes1.3K
GitHub Stars26.0K
Forks3.5K
Elm
Elm
Stacks758
Followers744
Votes319

Elixir vs Elm: What are the differences?

Introduction:

Elixir and Elm are both functional programming languages that have gained popularity in recent years. While they share some similarities, there are several key differences between the two.

  1. Concurrency and Distribution: Elixir is designed to handle concurrency and distributed computing, thanks to its built-in support for the actor-based model known as the "Erlang virtual machine" (BEAM). This makes it a powerful tool for building scalable and fault-tolerant systems. On the other hand, Elm does not have native support for concurrency and distribution, as it focuses primarily on building web front-end applications.

  2. Type System: Elixir has a dynamic type system, meaning that types are checked at runtime. This allows for flexibility and runtime metaprogramming. On the contrary, Elm has a strong static type system, which means that types are checked at compile-time. This helps catch errors early on and ensures more robust and reliable code.

  3. Error Handling: Elixir uses a "let-it-crash" philosophy, where errors are embraced and managed through supervision trees. This approach allows for fault-tolerant systems, as failing processes can be easily restarted. On the other hand, Elm encourages a more strict error handling approach, where errors are explicitly managed and prevented through the use of Elm's type system.

  4. Tooling and Community: Elixir has a vibrant ecosystem with a wide range of libraries, frameworks, and tools. It also benefits from the larger Erlang ecosystem, which provides a wealth of battle-tested tools and libraries for building scalable systems. Elm, on the other hand, has a more focused community, primarily centered around web development. While its ecosystem is smaller, it offers a curated set of tools and libraries specifically tailored for building front-end applications.

  5. Performance: Elixir has a reputation for being highly performant, thanks to its efficiency in handling concurrency and parallelism. It can handle a high number of concurrent connections and process millions of messages per second. Elm, on the other hand, focuses on providing a reliable and optimized experience for front-end applications. It achieves this by having a deterministic model update, which ensures predictable and efficient rendering.

  6. Learning Curve: Elixir has a steeper learning curve compared to Elm. This is mainly due to its powerful and flexible nature, as well as the need to understand the concepts of functional programming and the Erlang ecosystem. Elm, on the other hand, has a more approachable learning curve, especially for developers already familiar with JavaScript and web development. Its strong type system and compiler-assisted development make it easier to catch errors and reason about code.

In Summary, Elixir is a language that excels in concurrency, fault tolerance, and scalability, with a dynamic type system and a strong community. Elm, on the other hand, is focused on building robust front-end applications with a strong static type system, deterministic updates, and a curated ecosystem.

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Advice on Elixir, Elm

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
Jakes
Jakes

Mar 21, 2021

Decided

#rust @{#elixir}|topic:null| So am creating a messenger with voice call capabilities app which the user signs up using phone number and so at first i wanted to use Actix so i learned Rust so i thought to myself because well its first i felt its a bit immature to use actix web even though some companies are using Rust but we cant really say the full potential of Rust in a full scale app for example in Discord both Elixir and Rust are used meaning there is equal need for them but for Elixir so many companies use it from Whatsapp, Wechat, etc and this means something for Rust is not ready to go full scale we cant assume all this possibilities when it come Rust. So i decided to go the Erlang way after alot of Thinking so Do you think i made the right decision?Am 19 year programmer so i assume am not experienced as you so your answer or comment would really valuable to me

284k views284k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Elixir
Elixir
Elm
Elm

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.

Writing HTML apps is super easy with elm-lang/html. Not only does it render extremely fast, it also quietly guides you towards well-architected code.

-
No Runtime Exceptions; Fearless refactoring; Understand anyone's code; Fast and friendly feedback; Enforced Semantic Versioning; Small Assets
Statistics
GitHub Stars
26.0K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
3.5K
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
3.5K
Stacks
758
Followers
3.3K
Followers
744
Votes
1.3K
Votes
319
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
  • 45
    Code stays clean
  • 44
    Great type system
  • 40
    No Runtime Exceptions
  • 33
    Fun
  • 28
    Easy to understand
Cons
  • 3
    No typeclasses -> repitition (i.e. map has 130versions)
  • 2
    JS interoperability a bit more involved
  • 2
    JS interop can not be async
  • 1
    No JSX/Template
  • 1
    Main developer enforces "the correct" style hard

What are some alternatives to Elixir, Elm?

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.

Meteor

Meteor

A Meteor application is a mix of JavaScript that runs inside a client web browser, JavaScript that runs on the Meteor server inside a Node.js container, and all the supporting HTML fragments, CSS rules, and static assets.

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.

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