Erlang Programming to Elixir Programming Language
From Erlang to Elixir
What is Erlang good for?
The most commonly used language Erlang has an excellent communication structure that corresponds to a single agent within the network. It’s perfect: You may view many frequently used and written Erlang applications as examples in the Elixir and Erlang company directory.
Erlang possesses three major advantages over most other programming languages: The main advantage is the unique ways it builds its language.
It is a versatile tool designed to create responsive websites with ease. The ride is very rewarding. The problem however is limited. At the heart of your Web Apps (and any other apps that use HTTP), you are Cowboy. However, you should know more about building scalable web apps and select your tool for each layer of web development individually. Libraries are thoroughly documented and beginners can find little information on introductory material. There is no JavaScript support available. All in all, if you choose to write a web app using Erlang as an engine or with support from the Elixir Software development company it is a more suitable alternative.
Is Erlang worth learning?
Erlang offers high-speed and reliable application programming solutions. Erlang is the programming language used to develop a telephone application. In the past, this software has been used for web applications in various other domains, including Erlang which features a number of features that make it a particularly good candidate for distributed systems. This feature makes an Erlang program extremely resilient to failure.
It is not really necessary to learn Erlang anymore because there is a new programming language that covers what Erlang did so well. That functional programming language is Elixir. Elixir is built on the Erlang virtual machine. It is a manner similar to how Clojure is built on the JVM.
What Elixir took from Erlang runtime system
Elixir is a functional, dynamically typed language that is built on top of the Erlang Virtual Machine (VM), also known as BEAM. Elixir compiles down to Erlang bytecode, and it was designed to leverage the powerful concurrency and fault-tolerance features of Erlang while providing a more modern, expressive syntax.
While both Erlang and Elixir are functional programming languages designed for building concurrent, fault-tolerant, and scalable systems, Elixir aims to improve the developer experience by providing a syntax that is more akin to Ruby and powerful metaprogramming capabilities [Source 1](https://thecontentauthority.com/blog/elixir-vs-erlang), [Source 13](https://marketsplash.com/tutorials/erlang/erlang-vs-elixir/).
Elixir’s interoperability with Erlang allows it to leverage existing libraries built in support the Erlang ecosystem, which means you can use any code written in either Elixir or Erlang in one another with ease
Elixir also introduces some improvements on Erlang, such as metaprogramming capabilities. This allows developers to write concise constructs that seem as if they’re part of the language. These constructs are then transformed into proper code at compile-time, helping to eliminate structural duplication and boilerplate (https://www.theerlangelist.com/article/why_elixir).
To summarize, Elixir takes the following from Erlang:
- The Erlang VM (BEAM) as the runtime operating system here.
- Concurrency and fault-tolerance features of Erlang.
- Interoperability with Erlang code and libraries.
- The functional programming paradigm.
And it introduces the following improvements:
- A more modern, expressive syntax.
- Powerful metaprogramming capabilities.
- Improved code organization capabilities.
- A more developer-friendly environment.
Functional programming is a programming paradigm that emphasizes immutability, first-class functions, and the avoidance of side effects. Elixir, being a functional language, embraces these principles and provides a number of features and constructs to facilitate functional programming.
In Elixir, all values are immutable. Once a variable is bound to a value, it cannot be changed. This characteristic is critical in all functional languages and programming as it prevents side effects and makes the code easier to reason about.
Elixir programming language is also characterized by its use of first-class functions. This means that functions in Elixir can be assigned to variables, stored in data structures, passed as arguments to other functions, and returned as values from other functions. This is illustrated in Elixir’s support for higher-order functions, which are functions that can take one or more functions as arguments or return a function as a result.
Elixir also supports recursion, a common technique in functional programming where a function calls itself to achieve a result. Since Elixir doesn’t support traditional loop constructs like `for` or `while`, recursion is often used to implement iterative processes [Source 3](https://clouddevs.com/elixir/functional-programming/).
Pattern matching is another powerful feature in Elixir that is often used in functional programming. It allows a pattern to be matched against data structures and is extensively used in function definitions, control structures, and assignments [Source 3](https://clouddevs.com/elixir/functional-programming/).
Finally, Elixir’s pipe operator (`|>`) is a key feature that facilitates functional programming. It allows the output of one function to be passed as the input to the next, enabling a clear and readable style of programming that emphasizes data transformations [Source 1](https://elixir-lang.org/).
How does immutability in Elixir contribute to the avoidance of side effects in functional programming?
Immutability is a fundamental concept in functional programming, and it is central to how Elixir operates. In Elixir, once a variable is bound to a value, it cannot be changed. This is known as immutability.
1. **Predictability and Safety**: With immutability, you can be sure that a value will not change once it’s been defined. This makes your code safer and more predictable, as you don’t have to worry about a value changing unexpectedly due to another part of your code modifying it.
2. **Avoidance of Shared State Issues**: Immutability helps avoid problems associated with shared state, especially in concurrent programming. Since data cannot be changed once it’s defined, you don’t need to worry about synchronization issues, race conditions, or other concurrency-related bugs that can occur when multiple processes or threads are able to mutate shared data.
3. **Referential Transparency**: Immutability contributes to referential transparency, a property in functional programming where a function always produces the same output given the same input. This is possible because there’s no mutable state that could cause the function to behave differently for other processes with the same input.
4. **Simpler Reasoning and Debugging**: With immutability, you can reason about your code more effectively because you know that values don’t change. This can make your code easier to write software, to understand, less prone to bugs, and simpler to debug when things go wrong.
