Triangle.rb Notes - Elixir

Elixir: Your Next Addiction

2014-04-08 by Daniel Farrell (Meetup)

Sample code from talk is on Github.

Functional Programming

• programming == data transformation
• first class functions
• immutable data
  • allows for massively parallel execution
• recursive iteration
• tail recursion optimization

Patter Matching

• assignment
• different versions of the same function
• case statement
• gaurd clause
• if/else (rarely used)

Syntax

• basic types
  • string
  • int
  • float
• atoms (symbols)
• modules
• linked list
• tuples
• HashDicts (maps)
• anonymous functions
• functions (name/arity)
• pipeline
• records -> maps/structs
• protocols
• macros
• list comprehensions
• enum/stream
• processes
• nodes

Confusion

• no date/time datatypes
• anonymous function called with . in front of parenthesis (.())
• 'string' versus "string"
  • 'linked list of ascii character codes'
  • "utf-8 blob"
• quote/unquote and __using__

Tools

• mix - build tool
• lex - repl
• kiex - manage and run multiple versions of elixir
• ExDoc - documentation
• ExUnit - testing
• expm.co - third-party package repository

Web Tools

• eex - embedded template language
• calliope - HAML templates
• ecto - database access (LINQ-like)
• plug - Rack-like layer
• dynamo - Sinatra-like framework
• weber - Rails-like framework
• phoenix - realtime framework
• sugar - newer MVC framework

Erlang's Cowboy server (and others) is fast enough to not need to run behind a proxy server like nginx.