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0 pointsrdtsc9y ago0 comments

> that if it wasn't FOSS I'd have decided it's being astroturfed.

That's a good sign!

You know why? Because it has a great community and is very friendly for new comers. Jose, Eric and the rest of the team made that a priority and it shows. It doesn't just mean being nice on IRC, it also means putting usability first, putting more effort in how example looks, how documentation looks and so on.

If Google invented a language then proceed to push and sponsor it, by paying authors to work on it, organizing marketing, hackathons etc, then it is hard to say if it popular because of Google's backing or because it has its own merits.

0 comments

StavrosK9y ago

"Friendly for newcomers"? I tried to write something the other day, and had an Erlang developer friend to help me. The Elixir docs section just says "buy one of these books to get started", which is completely unacceptable, and we (mostly my friend, as I had no idea what anything is) spent an hour trying to figure out how to run a node, with Google not providing any useful answers.

That's as hostile to newcomers as it gets. Contrast this with the Rust book, that gets you from "I have no idea how anything works" to "hey I just wrote a small program!" in a few minutes.

iamd3vil9y ago

Elixir has a very good getting started guide[0]. I don't know if you have seen this or not. Even in the learning section, it recommends going through the getting started guide. It mentions other books in other resources. I don't know why you think it's hostile to new comers.

I learned Elixir totally from Getting started guide and then the documentation. Then for OTP, I have read an Erlang book to understand it well. Elixir's documentation is really awesome and one of the best I have seen.

[0] - http://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/introduction.html

StavrosK9y ago

Jesus... I saw that page. What I didn't see is the "next" link at the very bottom, right above the footer :( There's a whole bunch of stuff I haven't read! That page should be better designed... I think I also skipped the sentence below "running scripts", the one that says "chapter 2", because I skimmed later and it was just "here's where you can ask questions".

1 more reply

rdtscOP9y ago

Oh sorry to hear that Stavros. Sometimes Erlang knowledge doesn't translate directly to Elixir, there are just a few conventions to keep in mind.

I've used these before when playing with it:

* http://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/introduction.html

* https://howistart.org/posts/elixir/1

* Asking on #elixir-lang on freenode IRC

Here is a specific chapter on distribution and nodes:

http://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/mix-otp/distributed-t...

Their IRC channel, they were pretty helpful for me. And also I am sure they'd want to hear about your experience to also improve their docs and tutorials.

StavrosK9y ago

Thanks, the problem was that I didn't notice the rest of the pages on the guide :( I thought there was only the "installation" page.

ocean39y ago

Elixir has good starting guide. I was able to easily pick up reading from it. Book are further resources to learn.

StavrosK9y ago

Thanks, I seem to have missed the fact that there are multiple pages on that guide. Weird, because I saw that page again just now and thought "how is two paragraphs a good guide?" before noticing the contents on the side...

geodel9y ago

Yeah, I think Dart is failing and Go is succeeding because of Google backing.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

StavrosK9y ago

That's as hostile to newcomers as it gets. Contrast this with the Rust book, that gets you from "I have no idea how anything works" to "hey I just wrote a small program!" in a few minutes.

iamd3vil9y ago

[0] - http://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/introduction.html

StavrosK9y ago

1 more reply

rdtscOP9y ago

Oh sorry to hear that Stavros. Sometimes Erlang knowledge doesn't translate directly to Elixir, there are just a few conventions to keep in mind.

I've used these before when playing with it:

* http://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/introduction.html

* https://howistart.org/posts/elixir/1

* Asking on #elixir-lang on freenode IRC

Here is a specific chapter on distribution and nodes:

http://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/mix-otp/distributed-t...

Their IRC channel, they were pretty helpful for me. And also I am sure they'd want to hear about your experience to also improve their docs and tutorials.

StavrosK9y ago

Thanks, the problem was that I didn't notice the rest of the pages on the guide :( I thought there was only the "installation" page.

ocean39y ago

Elixir has good starting guide. I was able to easily pick up reading from it. Book are further resources to learn.

StavrosK9y ago

geodel9y ago

Yeah, I think Dart is failing and Go is succeeding because of Google backing.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse