Is Elixir the Future? feat. José Valim

What this episode covers

We're back for Backend Banter Season 2, and we bring a very special guest, José Valim, the creator of the Elixir Programming Language, one of the most popular and loved functional programming languages of today. (Fun fact: it's used in production at Discord). We cover the nitty-gritty of the language, ranging from simple topics such as the decision behind not making Elixir be statically typed, into the more complex cross-machine communication. We go over how Elixir's features compare with those of other languages, work habits of today's developers, José's own day-to-day development, and a lot more! Today's talk encompasses a great variety of themes, so grab your coffee and tune in! Learn back-end development - https://www.boot.dev Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm Livebook & Elixir Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pas9WdWIBHs Elixir Programming Language: https://elixir-lang.org/ Livebook: https://livebook.dev/ Elixir In Action Book: https://www.manning.com/books/elixir-in-action-third-edition José's Socials: X/Twitter: https://x.com/josevalim LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josevalim GitHub: https://github.com/josevalim Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 01:06 - Embarrassing Stories with Foreign Languages 02:58 - Who is José Valim? (and Elixir's Popularity) 06:51 - Does José Use Phoenix a Lot? 08:28 - Why Isn't Elixir Statically Typed? 16:51 - External Input vs. Internal Code Logic 28:16 - Quick Overview of BEAM languages 31:23 - Elixir’s Equivalent to Golang’s Goroutines & Channels 42:43 - Cross-Machine Communication in Standard Libraries 49:15 - Do You Need RabbitMQ When Writing Elixir? 54:53 - Built-In Features in the Standard Library 01:01:52 - Why People Are Too Used To Work The Hard Way 01:04:22 - José and DHH 01:08:01 - Favorite Elixir Features & Immutability 01:17:49 - Purity in Functional Programming 01:21:35 - Where to find José

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How long is this episode of Backend Banter?

This episode is 1 hour and 23 minutes long.

When was this Backend Banter episode published?

This episode was published on January 13, 2025.

What is this episode about?

We're back for Backend Banter Season 2, and we bring a very special guest, José Valim, the creator of the Elixir Programming Language, one of the most popular and loved functional programming languages of today. (Fun fact: it's used in production at...

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