[dragonwriter]

I knew Ruby pretty well before trying Erlang and used Erlang before trying Elixir -- I still find Erlang easier to write in that Elixir.

Elixir is more visually similar to Ruby, sure, buts its substantively not very similar, so the visual similarity is, if anything, a detriment, IMO.

[coldtea]

Perhaps the problem is you used Erlang before trying Elixir.

For the typical programmer coming outside the Erlang/Elixir environment, Elixir is by far the more familiar and easier to pick up.

[dragonwriter]

May be. It also may be that I have a lot less attachment to superficial syntactical similarity than lots of other people seem to -- I see lots of objections to languages not based on substance but based on the lack of familiar superficial structure, and that's not something that's really bothered me (one advantage, perhaps, of having learned -- even if only at a fairly superficial level in some cases -- several languages with radically different syntax in grade school), so "it superficially looks familiar" isn't bypassing, for me, a stumbling block lots of people seem to have.

In any case, yeah, I'm not saying that my personal Erlang vs. Elixir response is anything more than my personal response (or that Elixir isn't valuable; its certainly something I'd like to find time to explore more deeply and I think it has a lot to offer.)