[ToJans]

I'm a big fan of Erlang, Elixir, OTP and the BEAM vm. However, I only have very lightweight server needs for my SaaS, so it just doesn't make sense to switch to it, especially as my code is mostly client-based/typescript.

If my core value prop would be around real-time messaging or streaming data, BEAM/OTP would be my first choice.

Slightly OT: I'm still in dubio about Cloudflare pages, but I'm sure that the platform for the backend reboot that we're starting will be in Typescript. There's so much advantage in having one language for everything.

[ajmurmann]

I am really intrigued by the distributed systems capabilities that BEAM brings. I built a chat app using it and am also using Mnesia DB to store recent messages. However, my experience coding it has been terrible. I am using IntelliJ with an Elixir plugin and there is essence is no auto-complete. I used to write a ton of Ruby, but there RubyMine was really good at guessing what's available. Not so much here. On top of that more often than not the errors from Mnesia are just terrible. Most of the time I just get "TypeError" and a line number. Unclear what it expected to get and what it got passed instead. What IDE/editor have you found helpful? Are there any tricks to work around this? In Ruby I sometimes would use Pry Byebug to explore live what's actually available and iterate on my code in the REPL. Is there a similar approach you recommend here?

[lawn]

I've had success with the ElixirLS language server. It should work with most editors I assume, but I use it with Neovim. Autocomplete, diagnostics, goto definition work as expected.

[sbrother]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has had awful luck with that IntelliJ Elixir plug-in. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but it just doesn't work for me.

I've been using emacs + elixir-mode + alchemist since Elixir came out and I have zero complaints, it all works beautifully complete with autocomplete, jump to definition and documentation popups. But obviously emacs isn't for everyone.

[kamma4434]

Vs Code with the default Elixir plugin is pretty solid. Not wonderful but you get all you need, including the debugger.

[davidw]

What do you use instead, out of curiosity?

[TechDebtDevin]

Read dude