[aaron-lebo]

I think it depends on your hiring process.

Do you hire people who know how to code in language X and are really good at coding in language X but nothing else?

Or, do you hire people who are go-getters, want to use the best tool for the job, and want to learn?

Because if the latter, Erlang/Elixir might be esoteric, but Elixir specifically is a simpler language than currently more popular languages like Python or Ruby. It's also more elegant. I like to think of it as Scheme + Ruby syntax + pattern matching + concurrency. If that excites you, carry on. If that scares you, go for something more traditional (and no hard feelings) :).

[debacle]

I would confidently state the bigger problem would be salary. If you hire cheap programmers you probably can't afford to do Erlang development.

[nvarsj]

Seems like a strange view to have. The best paying work is generally in boring, enterprise approved languages. It's probably a competitive advantage for a small company to pick a niche language - I wager they would hire better quality engineers for less money.

[debacle]

The best paying work is not in boring, enterprise approved languages. I'm not sure where you heard that.

[namelezz]

Sometime I wonder why Elixir tries too hard to have Ruby syntax.

Erlang:

loop_through([H|T]) ->

  io:format('~p~n', [H]),

  loop_through(T);

loop_through([]) ->

  ok.

It seems convenient to use ';' to separate multiple definitions of a function compared to using 'end' in Elixir(function definition continues in the next block)

Elixir:

def loop_through([h|t]) do

  IO.inspect h

  loop_through t

end

def loop_through([]) do

  :ok

end

[aaron-lebo]

I believe, like Steve Yegge has said elsewhere, that programmers are lame, (and now paraphrasing) because they refuse to touch things that look odd.

Erlang's syntax may be more efficient, but a lot of people won't touch it becuase the syntax is unfamiliar. Elixir has a huge advantage in this. It might not matter to you specifically, but in the realm of adoption that is huge.

And honestly I really enjoy the syntax...

[bpicolo]

I mostly enjoy the syntax. Kind of hate that they made parentheses for function calls optional, especially since no-parentheses has ambiguous cases that behave weirdly (like with chaining syntax). Should be enforced.

Also, all the different import-related keywords are pretty confusing. Maybe that's improved though

[vvanders]

Does do/end make it much easier to build macros with Elixir?

I don't find either syntax to be off-putting but that's just me.

[rdtsc]

True. I personally like Erlang's syntax more. I like single assignment variables, I like the structure and feel of it and so on. But Elixir is great too. I am glad it is there and is taking advantage of the BEAM VM. It definetily appeals to many Ruby-ist or those who used Python and are otherwise scared by a different syntax.

[crymer11]

Still pretty new to Elixir, so I welcome any suggestions, but from my understanding (and based on Elixir's guides [1]), I think that the more idiomatic way to approach this is to avoid writing such a loop_through/1 function and instead just use:

  Enum.each(<the list>, &IO.inspect(&1))

or likely

  <series of data transformations resulting in list> |> Enum.each(&IO.inspect(&1))

Both return the :ok at the end of the loop, so Enum.each/2 looks to be functionally equivalent.

1 - http://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/recursion.html

[yelnatz]

Much of the Ruby influence is because the creator of Elixir (José) was previously from the Rails core team.