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Elixir vs Scala: What are the differences?

Introduction

Elixir and Scala are two popular programming languages used in the world of software development. While both are modern and powerful languages, they have distinct differences that set them apart from each other.

  1. Concurrency Model: One key difference between Elixir and Scala is their concurrency models. Elixir, being built on top of the Erlang Virtual Machine (BEAM), leverages Erlang's unique lightweight process model, which allows for massive concurrency and fault-tolerance. On the other hand, Scala incorporates the Actor model through the Akka framework, providing a similar level of concurrency but with a different approach.

  2. Functional Paradigm: Elixir is a functional programming language inspired by Erlang, putting a strong emphasis on immutability, immutability, and data transformation. With first-class support for functional programming constructs, such as pattern matching and higher-order functions, Elixir encourages a more functional programming style. On the other hand, Scala is a multi-paradigm language, allowing developers to choose between object-oriented and functional programming. While Scala supports functional programming, it also enables imperative and procedural styles of programming.

  3. Type Systems: Another distinguishing factor between Elixir and Scala is their type systems. Elixir follows a dynamic type system, where data types do not need to be defined explicitly and can change at runtime. This flexibility allows for rapid development and flexibility but may lead to potential runtime errors. In contrast, Scala adopts a static type system, where types are checked at compile-time. This provides stronger guarantees about program correctness and can help catch errors early in the development process.

  4. Interoperability: Elixir and Scala differ in their approach to interoperability with other programming languages and platforms. Elixir provides seamless integration with Erlang, allowing developers to leverage the vast ecosystem of Erlang libraries and tools. This makes it easy to build distributed and fault-tolerant systems. On the other hand, Scala has excellent interoperability with Java, enabling developers to use existing Java libraries and frameworks. This makes Scala a popular choice for building applications that leverage the Java ecosystem.

  5. Scalability: Elixir has a reputation for being highly scalable due to its underlying BEAM virtual machine. With its lightweight processes and message-passing concurrency model, Elixir can handle massive amounts of concurrent requests and scale effortlessly. Scala, while also capable of scaling, may require more effort and manual optimizations. While both languages can handle scalability well, Elixir's concurrency model provides a slight edge in this regard.

In summary, Elixir and Scala differ in their concurrency models, functional programming support, type systems, interoperability options, and scalability. While Elixir excels in concurrency and fault-tolerance with its lightweight processes, Scala offers a wider range of programming paradigms and excellent interoperability with Java. Ultimately, the choice between Elixir and Scala depends on the specific requirements and preferences of the project at hand.

Advice on Elixir and Scala
Needs advice
on
GolangGolangNode.jsNode.js
and
ScalaScala

Finding the best server-side tool for building a personal information organizer that focuses on performance, simplicity, and scalability.

performance and scalability get a prototype going fast by keeping codebase simple find hosting that is affordable and scales well (Java/Scala-based ones might not be affordable)

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Replies (1)
David Annez
VP Product at loveholidays · | 5 upvotes · 290.8K views
Recommends
on
Node.jsNode.js
at

I've picked Node.js here but honestly it's a toss up between that and Go around this. It really depends on your background and skillset around "get something going fast" for one of these languages. Based on not knowing that I've suggested Node because it can be easier to prototype quickly and built right is performant enough. The scaffolding provided around Node.js services (Koa, Restify, NestJS) means you can get up and running pretty easily. It's important to note that the tooling surrounding this is good also, such as tracing, metrics et al (important when you're building production ready services).

You'll get more scalability and perf from go, but balancing them out I would say that you'll get pretty far with a well built Node.JS service (our entire site with over 1.5k requests/m scales easily and holds it's own with 4 pods in production.

Without knowing the scale you are building for and the systems you are using around it it's hard to say for certain this is the right route.

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Decisions about Elixir and Scala

#rust #elixir 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

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Chose
PythonPython
over
ScalaScala

I am working in the domain of big data and machine learning. I am helping companies with bringing their machine learning models to the production. In many projects there is a tendency to port Python, PySpark code to Scala and Scala Spark.

This yields to longer time to market and a lot of mistakes due to necessity to understand and re-write the code. Also many libraries/apis that data scientists/machine learning practitioners use are not available in jvm ecosystem.

Simply, refactoring (if necessary) and organising the code of the data scientists by following best practices of software development is less error prone and faster comparing to re-write in Scala.

Pipeline orchestration tools such as Luigi/Airflow is python native and fits well to this picture.

I have heard some arguments against Python such as, it is slow, or it is hard to maintain due to its dynamically typed language. However cost/benefit of time consumed porting python code to java/scala alone would be enough as a counter-argument. ML pipelines rarerly contains a lot of code (if that is not the case, such as complex domain and significant amount of code, then scala would be a better fit).

In terms of performance, I did not see any issues with Python. It is not the fastest runtime around but ML applications are rarely time-critical (majority of them is batch based).

I still prefer Scala for developing APIs and for applications where the domain contains complex logic.

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Timm Stelzer
VP Of Engineering at Flexperto GmbH · | 18 upvotes · 601.1K views

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.

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We needed to incorporate Big Data Framework for data stream analysis, specifically Apache Spark / Apache Storm. The three options of languages were most suitable for the job - Python, Java, Scala.

The winner was Python for the top of the class, high-performance data analysis libraries (NumPy, Pandas) written in C, quick learning curve, quick prototyping allowance, and a great connection with other future tools for machine learning as Tensorflow.

The whole code was shorter & more readable which made it easier to develop and maintain.

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Pros of Elixir
Pros of Scala
  • 172
    Concurrency
  • 161
    Functional
  • 133
    Erlang vm
  • 112
    Great documentation
  • 105
    Great tooling
  • 86
    Immutable data structures
  • 81
    Open source
  • 77
    Pattern-matching
  • 62
    Easy to get started
  • 59
    Actor library
  • 32
    Functional with a neat syntax
  • 29
    Ruby inspired
  • 25
    Erlang evolved
  • 24
    Homoiconic
  • 22
    Beauty of Ruby, Speed of Erlang/C
  • 17
    Fault Tolerant
  • 14
    Simple
  • 13
    High Performance
  • 11
    Pipe Operator
  • 11
    Good lang
  • 11
    Doc as first class citizen
  • 9
    Stinkin' fast, no memory leaks, easy on the eyes
  • 9
    Fun to write
  • 8
    Resilient to failure
  • 8
    OTP
  • 6
    GenServer takes the guesswork out of background work
  • 4
    Not Swift
  • 4
    Pattern matching
  • 4
    Idempotence
  • 4
    Fast, Concurrent with clean error messages
  • 3
    Easy to use
  • 2
    Dynamic Typing
  • 2
    Error isolation
  • 187
    Static typing
  • 178
    Pattern-matching
  • 177
    Jvm
  • 172
    Scala is fun
  • 138
    Types
  • 95
    Concurrency
  • 88
    Actor library
  • 86
    Solve functional problems
  • 81
    Open source
  • 80
    Solve concurrency in a safer way
  • 44
    Functional
  • 24
    Fast
  • 23
    Generics
  • 18
    It makes me a better engineer
  • 17
    Syntactic sugar
  • 13
    Scalable
  • 10
    First-class functions
  • 10
    Type safety
  • 9
    Interactive REPL
  • 8
    Expressive
  • 7
    SBT
  • 6
    Case classes
  • 6
    Implicit parameters
  • 4
    Rapid and Safe Development using Functional Programming
  • 4
    JVM, OOP and Functional programming, and static typing
  • 4
    Object-oriented
  • 4
    Used by Twitter
  • 3
    Functional Proframming
  • 2
    Spark
  • 2
    Beautiful Code
  • 2
    Safety
  • 2
    Growing Community
  • 1
    DSL
  • 1
    Rich Static Types System and great Concurrency support
  • 1
    Naturally enforce high code quality
  • 1
    Akka Streams
  • 1
    Akka
  • 1
    Reactive Streams
  • 1
    Easy embedded DSLs
  • 1
    Mill build tool
  • 0
    Freedom to choose the right tools for a job

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Cons of Elixir
Cons of Scala
  • 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
  • 1
    Difficult to understand
  • 1
    Not a lot of learning books available
  • 11
    Slow compilation time
  • 7
    Multiple ropes and styles to hang your self
  • 6
    Too few developers available
  • 4
    Complicated subtyping
  • 2
    My coworkers using scala are racist against other stuff

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What is Elixir?

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.

What is 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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What are some alternatives to Elixir and Scala?
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.
Erlang
Some of Erlang's uses are in telecoms, banking, e-commerce, computer telephony and instant messaging. Erlang's runtime system has built-in support for concurrency, distribution and fault tolerance. OTP is set of Erlang libraries and design principles providing middle-ware to develop these systems.
Clojure
Clojure is designed to be a general-purpose language, combining the approachability and interactive development of a scripting language with an efficient and robust infrastructure for multithreaded programming. Clojure is a compiled language - it compiles directly to JVM bytecode, yet remains completely dynamic. Clojure is a dialect of Lisp, and shares with Lisp the code-as-data philosophy and a powerful macro system.
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.
Rust
Rust is a systems programming language that combines strong compile-time correctness guarantees with fast performance. It improves upon the ideas of other systems languages like C++ by providing guaranteed memory safety (no crashes, no data races) and complete control over the lifecycle of memory.
See all alternatives