> We should avoid making Elixir a Ruby-on-Erlang when it has the potential to be so much more.
I agree and share the enthusiasm. However, I feel like Elixir gets a bad rap just because how similar it looks to Ruby. I feel that other languages, such as HN's current darling Go, and Node.js actually have way more Ruby/Railsism libraries than Elixir does. In Go, there are hundreds of libraries with the tag line "Like <some Ruby library> but for Go!". The same goes for Node.js, but that number is probably in the thousands. In Rust, someone has actually tried to port ActiveSupport to Rust!
Syntax aside, the only influences Ruby has on Elixir in current day is the virtue of creating joy to use tools. Mix is a great example of this. Which is great, because that is by far Ruby's greatest strength and is the only Ruby influence I would want in Elixir, having been a Ruby user for many years.
When you start to get familiar with Elixir, you realize it is far more influenced by Lisp/Clojure and Erlang than it is Ruby.
I agree and share the enthusiasm. However, I feel like Elixir gets a bad rap just because how similar it looks to Ruby. I feel that other languages, such as HN's current darling Go, and Node.js actually have way more Ruby/Railsism libraries than Elixir does. In Go, there are hundreds of libraries with the tag line "Like <some Ruby library> but for Go!". The same goes for Node.js, but that number is probably in the thousands. In Rust, someone has actually tried to port ActiveSupport to Rust!
Syntax aside, the only influences Ruby has on Elixir in current day is the virtue of creating joy to use tools. Mix is a great example of this. Which is great, because that is by far Ruby's greatest strength and is the only Ruby influence I would want in Elixir, having been a Ruby user for many years.
When you start to get familiar with Elixir, you realize it is far more influenced by Lisp/Clojure and Erlang than it is Ruby.