Elixir (programming language)
 | This article contains promotional content. (June 2020) |
 | |
| Paradigm | multi-paradigm: functional, concurrent, distributed, process-oriented |
|---|---|
| First appeared | 2011 |
| Stable release | 1.10.3
/ 25 April 2020[1] |
| Typing discipline | dynamic, strong, duck |
| Platform | Erlang |
| License | Apache License 2.0[2] |
| Filename extensions | .ex, .exs |
| Website | elixir-lang |
| Influenced by | |
| Clojure, Erlang, Ruby | |
| Influenced | |
| LFE | |
Elixir is a functional, concurrent, general-purpose programming language that runs on the Erlang virtual machine (BEAM).[3] Elixir builds on top of Erlang and shares the same abstractions for building distributed, fault-tolerant applications. Elixir also provides productive tooling and an extensible design. The latter is supported by compile-time metaprogramming with macros and polymorphism via protocols.[4]
Elixir is used by companies such as PagerDuty,[5] Discord,[6] E-MetroTel,[7] Pinterest,[8] Moz,[9] Bleacher Report,[10] The Outline,[11] Inverse,[12] Divvy,[13] FarmBot[14] and for building embedded systems.[15][16] The community organizes yearly events in the United States,[17] Europe[18] and Japan[19] as well as minor local events and conferences.[20][21]
History
José Valim is the creator of the Elixir programming language, a research and development project of Plataformatec. His goals were to enable higher extensibility and productivity in the Erlang VM while keeping compatibility with Erlang's ecosystem.[22][23]
José Valim aimed to create a programming language for large-scale sites and apps. Being a Ruby developer, he used the best features of Ruby, Erlang, and Clojure to develop a high-concurrency and low-latency language. Elixir was designed to handle large data volumes. Its speed and capabilities spread Elixir in telecommunication, eCommerce, and finance industries. [24]
On July 12, 2018, Honeypot released a mini-documentary on Elixir.[25]
Versioning
Elixir mostly[26] follows Semantic Versioning and has only 1 major version with no plans for a second. Each of the minor versions supports a specific range of Erlang/OTP versions.[27]
Features
- A language that compiles to bytecode for the Erlang Virtual Machine (BEAM)[28]
- Everything is an expression[28]
- Erlang functions can be called from Elixir without run time impact, due to compilation to Erlang bytecode, and vice versa
- Meta programming allowing direct manipulation of abstract syntax tree (AST)[28]
- Polymorphism via a mechanism called protocols. Like in Clojure, protocols provide a dynamic dispatch mechanism. However, this is not to be confused with multiple dispatch as Elixir protocols dispatch on a single type.
- Support for documentation via Python-like docstrings in the Markdown formatting language[28]
- Shared nothing concurrent programming via message passing (Actor model)[29]
- Emphasis on recursion and higher-order functions instead of side-effect-based looping
- Lightweight concurrency utilizing Erlang's mechanisms[28]
- Railway oriented programming via the
withconstruct - Built-in tooling for managing dependencies, code compilation, running tests, formatting code, remote debugging and more
- Lazy and async collections with streams
- Pattern matching[28] to promote assertive code[30]
- Unicode support and UTF-8 strings
Examples
The following examples can be run in an iex shell or saved in a file and run from the command line by typing elixir <filename>.
Classic Hello world example:
iex> IO.puts("Hello World!")
Hello World!
Comprehensions
iex> for n <- [1,2,3,4,5], rem(n, 2) == 1, do: n*n
[1, 9, 25]
Pattern Matching (destructuring)
iex> [1, a] = [1, 2]
iex> a
2
iex> {:ok, [hello: a]} = {:ok, [hello: "world"]}
iex> a
"world"
Pattern Matching (multiple clauses)
iex> case File.read("path/to/file") do
iex> {:ok, contents} -> IO.puts("found file: #{contents}")
iex> {:error, reason} -> IO.puts("missing file: #{reason}")
iex> end
Pipe Operator
iex> "1" |> String.to_integer() |> Kernel.*(2)
2
Modules
defmodule Fun do
def fib(0), do: 0
def fib(1), do: 1
def fib(n), do: fib(n-2) + fib(n-1)
end
Sequentially spawning a thousand processes
for num <- 1..1000, do: spawn fn -> IO.puts("#{num * 2}") end
Asynchronously performing a task
task = Task.async fn -> perform_complex_action() end
other_time_consuming_action()
Task.await task
Noteworthy Elixir projects
- Mix is a build automation tool that provides tasks for creating, compiling, and testing Elixir projects, managing its dependencies, and more.[31]
- Phoenix is a web development framework written in Elixir which implements the server-side Model View Controller (MVC) pattern.[32]
- Nerves is a platform, framework, and tooling environment for building embedded systems and devices.[16][33]
- Ecto is the database wrapper and query generator for Elixir.[34]
See also
References
- ^ "Releases - elixir-lang/elixir". Retrieved 25 April 2020 – via GitHub.
- ^ "elixir/LICENSE at master · elixir-lang/elixir · GitHub". GitHub.
- ^ "Most Popular Programming Languages of 2018 - Elite Infoworld Blog". 2018-03-30. Retrieved 2018-05-08.
- ^ "Elixir". José Valim. Retrieved 2013-02-17.
- ^ "Elixir at PagerDuty". PagerDuty. 2018-06-14. Retrieved 2019-04-21.
- ^ Vishnevskiy, Stanislav (Jul 6, 2017). "How Discord Scaled Elixir to 5,000,000 Concurrent Users". Retrieved 2019-04-21.
- ^ "What's New in Release 6.0 | Documentation". www.emetrotel.com. Retrieved 2019-04-21.
- ^ "Introducing new open-source tools for the Elixir community". Retrieved 2016-08-01.
- ^ "Unlocking New Features in Moz Pro with a Database-Free Architecture". Retrieved 2016-08-01.
- ^ "Elixir". Bleacher Report Engineering. Retrieved 2019-05-22.
- ^ Lucia, Dave (Sep 24, 2018). "Two years of Elixir at The Outline". Retrieved 2019-05-22.
- ^ "What big projects use Elixir?". Retrieved 2016-08-01.
- ^ "Why Divvy uses Elixir instead of more popular coding languages". Retrieved 2019-04-30.
- ^ The operating system and all related software that runs on FarmBot's Raspberry Pi.: FarmBot/farmbot_os, FarmBot, 2019-10-28, retrieved 2019-10-29
- ^ "Elixir in production interview: Garth Hitchens". Retrieved 2016-08-01.
- ^ a b "Nerves - Craft and deploy bulletproof embedded software in Elixir". Retrieved 2016-08-01.
- ^ "ElixirConf". Retrieved 2018-07-11.
- ^ "ElixirConf". Retrieved 2018-07-11.
- ^ "Erlang & Elixir Fest". Retrieved 2019-02-18.
- ^ "Elixir LDN". Retrieved 2018-07-12.
- ^ "EMPEX - Empire State Elixir Conference". Retrieved 2018-07-12.
- ^ Elixir - A modern approach to programming for the Erlang VM. Retrieved 2013-02-17.
- ^ José Valim - ElixirConf EU 2017 Keynote. Retrieved 2017-07-14.
- ^ "Behinde the code: The One Who Created Elixir". Retrieved 2019-11-25.
- ^ "Elixir: A Mini-Documentary". Retrieved 2018-07-12.
- ^ "Imperative Assignements are breaking the application in 1.7 update · Issue #8076 · elixir-lang/elixir". GitHub. Retrieved 2020-02-10.
- ^ Elixir is a dynamic, functional language designed for building scalable and maintainable applications: elixir-lang/elixir, Elixir, 2019-04-21, retrieved 2019-04-21
- ^ a b c d e f "Elixir". Retrieved 2014-09-07.
- ^ Loder, Wolfgang (12 May 2015). Erlang and Elixir for Imperative Programmers. "Chapter 16: Code Structuring Concepts", section title "Actor Model": Leanpub. Retrieved 7 July 2015.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) - ^ "Writing assertive code with Elixir". Retrieved 2018-07-05.
- ^ "Mix". Retrieved 2019-04-18.
- ^ "Overview". Retrieved 2019-04-18.
- ^ "Getting Started". Retrieved 2019-04-18.
- ^ "Getting Started". Retrieved 2019-04-16.
