Yeah I would never use something like Scala or Java for this type of work despite working as a Java/Scala consultant for many years. I always found myself reaching for Python, and I’d never, ever consider Erlang for system scripting work, no matter how enthusiastic, that would be just crazy. Elixir on the other hand, I’d happily use, it’s got really good string handling, easy to shell out to system and robust when performing concurrent tasks. Boot time is fast enough, I’d certainly consider it for use as a cron task - when it comes to that sort of stuff, it’s well enough understood that I’d rather leave the configuration to operations staff, cron is something every nix user knows well and understands.
bryanhuntesl
imanuelgittens
Thank you so much. My background is in web development so I think that if I can use Elixir for web development, it would ease the transition to a new language. That would help we really understand all that the language offers and then who knows? I may decide to dive deeper!
Do you know of any other great use cases for Elixir outside of Web Development?
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easco
Elixir is a programming language for working in the Erlang ecosystem. The Erlang system is applied to any number of things where reliability (fault tolerance), concurrency and distribution are key features. Erlang was originally created for telecom systems, like phone switches, but has been applied to creating databases (e.g. Riak, CouchDB, Cloudant), online games, sports entertainment systems, systems for placing wagers, online communication systems like WhatsApp, media distribution applications… lots of things.
Now in some of those cases folks are using the Erlang language (rather than Elixir) but Elixir would be just as applicable in those cases as well.
Phoenix is the archetypal framework, written in Elixir, for creating an application with a web server. I’ve used Phoenix with Absinthe to create a web application that presents an GraphQL interface… but I’ve also used Elixir for “middle tier” systems (systems that handle the flow of information between a front-end application and a back-end system). I’ve also created utility applications that do things like scrape GitHub Repos and generate reports (scraping the repos in parallel).
Even more through the “Nerves” project you can create embedded systems that use Elixir. I have a Raspberry Pi based system I’ve been working on which interfaces with thermocouples and a fan to provide a barbecue controller (yes… you could go buy one of those, but where is the fun in that?).
So there are lots of uses outside of web development. The hallmarks of the platform are concurrency, resilience, and distribution - Elixir is a great fit for any system that needs those things.
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