ElixirScript - Elixir to Javascript transpiler

Isn’t there an Elixirscript project or something similar? I think I read something about that some time ago.

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Yep there is ElixirScript - here’s the Getting Started guide.

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There was something (don’t remember exact name) what was supposed to transpile Elixir into JavaScript, but it had some problems I did not came around.

  • The necessary “runtime” was not created when compiling modules, one had to copy it manually from the source folder of that project
  • There was a missive boilerplate code involved to actually transfer the most simple datatypes (as in atoms, lists, and tuples) between Elixir on the server side and the Elixir-To-JavaScript in the Browser.
  • There was a massive performance overhead for even simplest loops that just throw a message into the log. (A simple loop throwing 1k lines of text into the console ran about only 20% of the speed of native JS)
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I agree with you here. I would much rather write Elixir through-and-through. However, it will need some JavaScript library support, namely React.js and Bootstrap. Clojure(Script) is able to do this with much success: Om, an implementation of React in ClojureScript, actually benchmarks twice as fast as React.js itself! Until ElixirScript gains some momentum, I agree in that Elm is the next best thing.

I wasn’t aware of these specific problems with ElixirScript, but I figured as much, as it’s a relatively new project. I heard from a fella at ElixirDaze that his company in New Orleans is trying to hire the ElixirScript guy, so maybe he will have more time to work on it in the future.

Perhaps we can fork this thread to an ElixirScript discussion thread. :slight_smile:

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Now available via Homebrew (Mac)

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