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  5. Elixir vs F#

Elixir vs F#

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Elixir
Elixir
Stacks3.5K
Followers3.3K
Votes1.3K
GitHub Stars26.0K
Forks3.5K
F#
F#
Stacks779
Followers556
Votes399
GitHub Stars2.2K
Forks316

Elixir vs F#: What are the differences?

Introduction:

Elixir and F# are two programming languages that differ in several aspects. This Markdown code provides a comparison between Elixir and F#, highlighting the key differences in six specific areas.

  1. Concurrency Model: Elixir provides built-in support for concurrency with its lightweight processes and message-passing mechanism using actors. It utilizes the Erlang virtual machine (BEAM) to achieve high scalability and fault tolerance. On the other hand, F# primarily relies on the .NET Framework's concurrency features, such as async/await and Task Parallel Library, to handle concurrency and parallelism.

  2. Functional Programming Paradigm: Both Elixir and F# embrace functional programming; however, Elixir is a pure functional language, while F# is a hybrid language that combines functional and object-oriented programming. Elixir's functional nature encourages immutability and emphasizes the use of higher-order functions, pattern matching, and recursion. F# provides features like immutable data structures, higher-order functions, and currying, but also incorporates object-oriented concepts through its interoperability with .NET.

  3. Syntax and Language Design: Elixir adopts a Ruby-inspired syntax with a focus on readability and expressive code. It emphasizes the use of pipelines, pattern matching, and macro-based metaprogramming. On the other hand, F# has a syntax influenced by OCaml and adopts a more ML-family language style with a strong static type system and powerful type inference capabilities. It promotes a more terse and concise coding style with features like pipe forward operator and discriminated unions.

  4. Tooling and Ecosystem: Elixir's tooling and ecosystem are centered around the Mix build tool and the Hex package manager. It provides a rich set of libraries and frameworks, including the popular Phoenix web framework. F#, being part of the .NET ecosystem, benefits from the extensive tooling and libraries available for .NET. It leverages tools like Visual Studio and the NuGet package manager, along with frameworks such as ASP.NET and Xamarin.

  5. Error Handling and Fault Tolerance: Elixir promotes the "let it crash" philosophy, where processes are isolated and errors are allowed to propagate, leading to fault-tolerant systems. It provides supervisors that automatically restart failed processes. F#, on the other hand, follows a more traditional error handling approach using try/catch blocks and optional types. It relies on exception handling and the Result type to handle and propagate errors.

  6. Community and Adoption: Elixir has gained popularity primarily within the web development community, especially for building scalable and real-time applications. It has a growing community that actively contributes to its ecosystem. F#, being part of the .NET ecosystem, benefits from the wider adoption of .NET and is prominent in areas like financial programming, data science, and machine learning. It has a strong community and is supported by Microsoft.

In Summary, Elixir and F# differ in their concurrency models, functional programming emphasis, syntax and language design, tooling and ecosystem, error handling approaches, and community adoption.

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Advice on Elixir, F#

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
Markus
Markus

Feb 3, 2021

Needs adviceonKotlinKotlinJavaJavaF#F#

Hi there. I want to expand my coding toolset. So I want to learn a second backend language besides Kotlin. Kotlin is fantastic. I love it in every aspect, and I think I can never return to Java. And also why should I? It is 100% interoperable with java and can co-exist in every project.

So my question here is. Which language do you think will bring me more joy? I think F#; it is more like Kotlin. Then C# (it's more or like 100% java). But, let's say I learn F#. Is it 100% interoperable like Kotlin? can they live side by side? Can I, then, apply to .NET jr jobs after a while, for example, or is C# the holy cow? I would like to learn .Net.

If it is the worst and only C# is acceptable, then which language should I learn? Dart? Golang?

284k views284k
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
F#
F#

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.

F# is a mature, open source, cross-platform, functional-first programming language. It empowers users and organizations to tackle complex computing problems with simple, maintainable and robust code.

Statistics
GitHub Stars
26.0K
GitHub Stars
2.2K
GitHub Forks
3.5K
GitHub Forks
316
Stacks
3.5K
Stacks
779
Followers
3.3K
Followers
556
Votes
1.3K
Votes
399
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
  • 53
    Pattern-matching
  • 42
    Makes programming fun again
  • 38
    Type providers
  • 32
    Delightful
  • 30
    Frictionless
Cons
  • 3
    Microsoft tend to ignore F# preferring to hype C#
  • 2
    Interop between C# can sometimes be difficult
  • 1
    Hype
  • 1
    Type Providers can be unstable in larger solutions

What are some alternatives to Elixir, F#?

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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