A bit of background first:
In my masters I had a module called Programming Paradigms and Languages.
What this module is about is the different paradigms, and one language for each of them.
The chosen languages were:
Object Oriented: Ruby
Functional: Clojure
Logical: Prolog
Process Oriented: Erlang
Mathematical Programming: Matlab
Out of that what I can say is:
- Ruby syntax is awesome. So elegant but there are many performance issues
- Clojure is very nice for the academic world, but I cant imagine anyone using it for commercial software building.
- Prolog. Ah, prolog... I have had a love/hate relationship with this since my undergrad. Powerful but very specific.
- Erlang: blazing fast. handle processes like no one else, but it is probably the worst syntax I've ever seen. Ok, not the worst, but close to that (Yes mind fuck, I didn't forget you)
- Matlab... this doesn't even had to be in this list
So, after that my conclusion is: I want a language able to handle many processes like erlang, but with a nice syntax like ruby and maybe add there some cool recursion features from clojure if you can.
That is elixir.
"Elixir is a functional meta-programming aware language built on top of the Erlang VM. It is a dynamic language with flexible syntax with macros support that leverages Erlang's abilities to build concurrent, distributed, fault-tolerant applications with hot code upgrades."- http://elixir-lang.org/
So, just like that it has become my favorite language.
But just like all open source, making it work is always a hassle. But this is for the next post.
Lets have an easy start: how to add Elixir to your path?
I am new to the mac world, for those of you that like me are not great at this, let's go step by step:
- check if it is already there: type "echo $PATH" on bash (capital letters)
- if elixir is there, you are good to go. if it is not, add it by typing
echo 'PATH=$PATH:/Software/elixir/bin' >> ~/.bash_profile (I put it in the folder Software under root, use your path) - close your bash and open it again. type iex, if you get the interactive shell, go ahead and play with it :)
