Cyytrus
Why isn't `:timer` an Elixir module yet?
Currently, Elixir relies on :timer from Erlang’s stdlib. However, in every company I’ve worked at, I’ve noticed developers manually calculating milliseconds rather than using this library. This results in code that’s harder to read and less semantically clear.
This makes me wonder: why hasn’t :timer been ported to Elixir? Is there community interest in having a native Elixir timer module? I’m seriously considering opening a PR to implement it, but I’d like to understand if there are technical or philosophical reasons it hasn’t been done yet.
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LostKobrakai
Besides the other answers: Erlang modules are generally not „ported“ just for the sake of a port existing. You can call erlang modules just fine, please do so. No need for a shallow port. The new to_timeout for example exists to integrate with the new elixir duration definition handling.
hauleth
The same can be said about any function in any library. I do not think that “having single place to search for documentation” is valid argument for maintenance burden of wrapping everything.
kevinschweikert
Welcome! Since 1.17 there’s Kernel.to_timeout/1 which should make calculating milliseconds obsolete
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brkn
Keeping it up to date might not be hard. I checked the commit history of erlang’s timer module, it has 12 commits that change source code for the last 5 years (I’m counting very liberally, spec and doc changes are included). Most of them are tiny.
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