Muzhawir Amri

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Getting to Know Elixir Programming Language

Learn Elixir
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Elixir: An Alternative Language for Writing Code in the BEAM Virtual Machine#

If Erlang is already very capable, why learn Elixir? The answer lies in the improved developer experience and productivity that Elixir offers.

Elixir is a functional programming language designed for writing clean, concise, and expressive code on top of the BEAM virtual machine. With its modern syntax and developer-friendly design, Elixir makes it easier to read, maintain, and scale applications.

Elixir code is compiled into BEAM bytecode and runs on the Erlang runtime, making it fully compatible with the Erlang ecosystem. This means we can use Erlang libraries in Elixir projects and vice versa. This compatibility is especially useful when a needed library has not yet been implemented in Elixir, allowing us to rely on the mature tooling available in Erlang.

But Elixir is not just about compatibility. It simplifies many aspects of programming in Erlang. Elixir reduces boilerplate, improves code readability, and provides a modern toolchain, such as:

  • Mix for project management, testing, and compilation.
  • Hex as the official package management system.
  • Integrated documentation, automated testing, and debugging utilities.

With these advantages, Elixir brings the power and reliability of Erlang in a form that is more approachable and enjoyable for developers. This makes it an attractive option for building large-scale and fault-tolerant systems on the BEAM virtual machine.

Elixir is an open source project created by José Valim ↗. Its source code is publicly available in the elixir-lang/elixir ↗ repository on GitHub.

Feature Improvements Introduced by Elixir#

One of Elixir’s key strengths is its ability to significantly reduce boilerplate and syntactic noise. Elixir code tends to be simpler, more expressive, and easier to maintain.

In Erlang, boilerplate is often difficult to avoid due to syntax limitations. Elixir addresses this through various forms of syntactic sugar and a more modern coding style, making it more natural and comfortable to write and read code.

Although both Erlang and Elixir are functional languages focused on transforming data through functions, Elixir offers a more intuitive approach. A notable example lies in how function execution is structured. In Erlang, data flow is typically written in a nested, inside-out manner, a style known as staircasing. When many functions are involved, the code can become hard to read. Elixir simplifies this using the pipe operator (|>), allowing us to express data flow from left to right or top to bottom. This makes the logic more fluent and readable.

Beyond the pipe operator, Elixir introduces a range of features that enhance the overall development experience. Integrated documentation, an interactive REPL, and a complete toolchain have been part of the ecosystem since the beginning.

For instance, documentation in Elixir can be written directly in the source code using the @moduledoc and @doc annotations. This documentation is treated as a first-class citizen, accessible from the REPL (IEx), exportable as HTML or EPUB via the ExDoc tool, and even executable as tests through the doctest feature.

For day-to-day development, Elixir provides Mix, a unified build tool that manages projects, dependencies, compilation, testing, and more. Mix is tightly integrated with Hex (https://hex.pm ↗), the official package manager of the BEAM ecosystem, making it easy to discover, use, and share libraries with the community.

In short, Elixir delivers the power and reliability of Erlang in a more modern, developer-friendly form. These features empower us to write efficient, well-structured, and well-documented code from day one.

Limitations of Elixir#

No technology is perfect, and that includes Erlang and Elixir. That is why it is important for us to understand some of Elixir’s limitations so we can make the right decisions based on our specific needs.

Performance#

One of Elixir’s main limitations lies in its execution speed. Since Elixir (and Erlang) runs on top of the BEAM virtual machine, its performance cannot be compared to languages that compile directly to machine code such as C++ or Rust.

However, raw performance is not the main focus of the BEAM ecosystem. The focus is on stability, reliability, and managing workloads in highly distributed systems, rather than just processing as many requests per second as possible. Elixir is designed to maintain consistent performance even under heavy load.

If your application is CPU-bound and requires heavy computation, Elixir’s performance may not be ideal. In such cases, the parts that require high performance can be implemented using another language like C or Rust, then integrated into the Erlang system using features like NIF (Native Implemented Function) ↗.

That said, if your main requirement is high-performance, CPU-level data processing, it may be worth considering another technology that is better suited to that use case.

Ecosystem#

The Erlang and Elixir ecosystem is still relatively small compared to other popular programming languages. As a comparison, the BEAM ecosystem currently has around twenty thousand packages available on Hex ↗, while PHP has more than four hundred thousand packages on Packagist ↗, and JavaScript has over three million packages on NPM ↗.

This means that during development, you might face situations where the libraries you need are not yet available. This can slow down development compared to working in a more mature ecosystem.

Even so, the BEAM ecosystem continues to grow. In fact, Elixir ranked second in the most wanted programming languages in the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2024 ↗, just behind Rust. This shows that more developers are becoming interested in learning Elixir and may contribute to the ecosystem in the future.

In addition, the emergence of languages like Gleam, which also runs on the BEAM virtual machine, gives additional momentum to ecosystem growth. Libraries written in Gleam can be used from both Elixir and Erlang, which expands the available tooling options for developers.

Learning Resources for Elixir#

The main resource for learning Elixir is its official documentation, especially the Getting Started ↗ section. There, you’ll find the fundamentals of Elixir syntax, how to define modules, work with data structures, and understand other core concepts.

In addition, the third edition of Elixir in Action ↗ by Saša Jurić comes highly recommended. The book is divided into three major parts: language fundamentals, concurrency in BEAM, and deployment in production environments. This structure makes it a complete and systematic guide for anyone aiming to understand Elixir in depth.

For those who prefer visual learning, there are also several excellent video-based resources. The ElixirCasts ↗ series and the Elixir Mentor ↗ YouTube channel provide short, focused videos that get straight to the point. This format is ideal for strengthening your practical understanding quickly.

With this variety of learning materials available, you can choose the approach that best suits your learning style, whether it’s reading documentation, studying a technical book, or watching interactive videos.

References#