Agree. The language is different. The standard library is different. The runtime is different. The last two quite substantially at that. JavaScript is more like Ruby than Elixir is. I'm tempted to say Go and Jave are more Ruby than Elixir is.
FWIW, I've been using elixir for about a year now, and I think it's fantastic. I still use node & ruby for scripts (which can get complicated, but almost always for one-offs and asynchronous processing), Go for anything I actively want to share memory (though, started using Crystal, can't wait for threads), and OpenResty for any web proxy/middleware stuff. But Elixir is now the lions share for me and I find it fun and productive.
I want to build a language that focuses on developing microservices. Which should be performant and easy to write. This is why Rooby has Ruby's user friendly syntax and is written in Go."
At least Crystal brings new features like static typing, light threads, and compilation. From the README I don’t see what Rooby is bringing to the table.
Maybe not being static typed is what could make it appealing to Ruby developers. For example I don't like to have to declare types or generics. Type inference is ok.
There is a wide range of languages to pick the one that better suits our style from. That's great and I like that people keeps trying.
Static typing doesn’t mean you have to declare types. Type inference means you can write code just like a non-typed language but you get the safety + it executes faster. IMHO, except for toy languages, not having (strict) typing in 2017 is a language design flaw.
It's a tradeoff between safety and convenience. It's swinging toward safety now and it will swing back towards convenience again. At best we're living in a damped harmonic oscillator. Maybe type inference is the equilibrium point.
Is it just because they both have "def" and "puts"? Cause that's just about where the similarities end :-)