[prophesi]

For a Phoenix application, a Ruby on Rails developer will be able to pick it up pretty fast. Usually just takes one or two pair programming sessions going through the full MVC flow with test-driven development and they're good to take on most tasks. Then reading up some of the official Getting Started Elixir docs fills in the gaps, particularly understanding how a Process[0] works, working up to Tasks/GenServers/Supervisors under the Mix and OTP section.

For hires that already know Elixir, I've found the talent pool to be way above the average (and expensive). They're usually senior devs that fell in love with Elixir, wanting to move away from their previous tech stacks or have already worked at an Elixir shop.

[0] https://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/processes.html

[iterateoften]

The discussion is why isn’t it more mainstream not is it good.

Like you said it’s mostly senior expensive engineers. They are really good, but is it worth it? Do 90% of startups need it? I have had success hiring younger inquiring Elixir engineers also, but the question is about why isn’t it mainstream not how to find a diamond in the rough.

If you are running a company today the fact of the matter is Elixir a a executional Risk and the Reward the risk gives clearly isn’t worth it for most startups or else it would have higher adoption.

[HerrBertling]

Really appreciate your focus on economic reasons. That indeed makes a lot of sense.

I guess the gamble to use Elixir/Phoenix only pays off in certain circumstances and if your business grows in such a way that you can simply afford to hire more expensive devs in later stages of the journey.

[mattbrewsbytes]

I would second his opinions and take it a step further ... people here will debate tech stacks til the end of time but in the grand scheme of things picking a tech that has a much smaller and more expensive talent pool could be a scenario where that choice is a death knell for the project (could be, not will be). The low adoption rate also means more abandoned libraries, less variety of libraries and possibly having to DIY things. These all add time to a project on top of a learning curve (which will vary per person) which make it more expensive.

I'm not advocating always pick something with the lowest $/hour rate. There are a lot of other choices out there that are not going to have risks around technology choice.

Long term maintenance is a concern too, not of Elixir, of the apps built with it. When that app goes into a maintenance mode (still providing value just doesn't need new/active development) the devs will likely move on to other work/companies. Now to do support work you have a small+expensive talent pool that doesn't likely want to do support work.

If you're a fan of Elixir, don't take this as me saying "no", I really like the things I learned (and continue to learn) working with it. Its just trade-offs that mostly are on managements shoulders. The developers advocating for it take no risks really.