Why Elixir is the Programming Language You Should Learn in 2021
Do you know that Elixir has become 10 years old on 9th January 2021 — it is a comparatively younger language than its counterparts. However, recently Elixir development is gaining immense popularity among software developer communities. In this article, we will explore the Elixir language uses and features that make it an amazing choice for software developers.
For those who are new to Elixir, here is a brief introduction:
Elixir is an awesome hybrid of Ruby and Erlang — what we call the best of both worlds!
The creator of Elixir, Jose Valim was originally a Ruby on Rails developer. With time, he got increasingly frustrated with its performance. He realized that Ruby was not designed well to solve concurrency issues. Therefore he researched technologies that could help him with performance problems, and he found Erlang! Erlang was originally introduced by Ericsson developers as concurrent, fault-tolerant, scalable, and dynamic functional language.
There was one major issue with Erlang — it was too complicated and disruptive for today’s developers. Therefore, Jose Valim introduced Elixir — a simplified version built on top of Erlang VM (Beam). Elixir developers enjoy all the features of Erlang while working with a simpler syntax (like Ruby).
In short, if you compare Elixir vs Erlang, the Elixir language is more user-friendly. On the other hand, Elixir is way ahead in performance and reliability as compared to Ruby.
Now that you have understood the background of this language, let’s explore why Elixir’s popularity is increasing in 2021. Here are some reasons due to which Elixir development is the next big thing:
Enjoy Concurrency of the Functional Language
Many programmers who shift to this language are amazed at how fast Elixir is. Elixir is a functional language. The FP constructs help to achieve high concurrency and efficiency. Elixir’s performance is the main motivation behind the dedicated, fast-growing Elixir community around the world.
Scalability
Elixir helps in developing scalable applications. The inherent Erlang processes help Elixir software engineers to easily scale systems, by allowing more machines and more cores to existing machines.
Reliability and Fault-tolerance
Elixir has inherited Erlang’s motto — “let it crash”. The best thing about Elixir software development is that it is fault-tolerant. This means that the Elixir application can bounce back to normal after crash/failure! This is the reason why they are called ‘self-healing’ applications.
Dynamic Nature
Due to the dynamic nature of Elixir development, types are checked in run-time, not during compilation. This property also increases the efficiency of elixir web development.
Simplicity
Another great reason to learn Elixir -Its syntax is quite easier to understand. It helps elixir software engineers to write clean and understandable code.
Phoenix for Elixir
Phoenix is a framework of Elixir, and believe me — it is heaven for web developers. It is one of the most user-friendly and efficient frameworks out there.
Elixir Web Development
Elixir and Phoenix is a powerful combination for web development. It is fast and efficient to develop back-end web applications. This is the reason why there is an increasing trend to hire Elixir developers with expertise in Phoenix for web development.
Elixir Development in IoT
Yes, you read it right. If you are into embedded systems and IoT application development, you must explore Elixir and Nerves platform. Here are some interesting thoughts of Jose Valim on the use of Erlang’s descendant Elixir in IoT:
“So what if we could leverage the decades of lessons learned by Erlang/OTP to design embedded applications? What if a fault on the Wi-Fi driver could be fixed by having a supervisor simply restart it? After all, the first major use of Erlang/OTP was in an embedded system, the Ericsson AXD301 ATM switch.”
Due to the above-mentioned reasons, Elixir is also becoming a favorite medium for developers in Audio/Video streaming, game development, and data ingestions/pipelines. Elixir is definitely the language you should master in 2021. Happy learning!
