March 31, 2026

297: JavaScript Joins the BEAM?

35 minutes

News includes Quickbeam, an exciting new research project that brings a full JavaScript runtime inside the BEAM with OTP supervision, native DOM access, and a built-in TypeScript toolchain, plus a companion Volt asset pipeline for Elixir; José Valim highlights how Elixir’s type system work is already inspiring optimizations in Python’s Ruff project, and shares a new blog post on the latest BDD performance improvements coming in Elixir v1.20; LiveView Debugger v0.7 arrives with source code links, nested live view tree structure, and a closer path to v1.0; a new browser-based Elixir Language Tour expands its Processes chapter with hands-on GenServers, Supervisors, and more; Oban v2.21 lands with workflow tracking, rate limiting, and massive index improvements; and more!

Show Notes online - http://podcast.thinkingelixir.com/297

Elixir Community News

https://paraxial.io/ – Paraxial.io is sponsoring today's show! Sign up for a free trial of Paraxial.io today and mention Thinking Elixir when you schedule a demo for a special offer.

https://github.com/elixir-volt/volt – Volt - a new asset pipeline for Elixir that replaces esbuild wrapper, Tailwind CLI, and node_modules.

https://x.com/dan_note/status/2033975642057019499 – Announcement post for the Volt asset pipeline for Elixir.

https://x.com/dan_note/status/2032139121850728939 – Announcement post for Quickbeam, a JavaScript runtime for the BEAM.

https://github.com/elixir-volt/quickbeam – Quickbeam - a JavaScript runtime for the BEAM with Web APIs backed by OTP, native DOM, and a built-in TypeScript toolchain. Still an early beta research project.

https://github.com/cocoa-xu/exclosured – ExClosured - a new framework for compiling Rust to WebAssembly, running it in the browser, and hooking into Phoenix LiveView.

https://exclosured.app/ – Demo site for ExClosured, showing image manipulation and SQLite-in-the-browser examples.

https://x.com/josevalim/status/2034623221807370570 – José Valim highlights how Elixir's type system work has inspired optimizations in Python's Ruff/ty project.

https://github.com/astral-sh/ruff/pull/23881 – Pull request on the Python Ruff project applying BDD optimization techniques inspired by Elixir's type system work.

https://github.com/astral-sh/ruff – Ruff - an extremely fast Python linter and code formatter, written in Rust.

https://x.com/josevalim/status/2034624137981739153 – José Valim shares his latest blog post on type system optimizations for differences.

https://elixir-lang.org/blog/2026/03/19/lazy-bdds-with-eager-literal-differences/ – Elixir blog post - "Lazy BDDs with eager literal differences" - covering the latest round of type system performance optimizations, available in Elixir v1.20.0-rc4.

https://x.com/swmansionelixir/status/2034295512862490655 – Announcement of LiveView Debugger v0.7 with new features including source code links, better filtering, and tree structure for nested live views.

https://docs.swmansion.com/live-debugger/ – LiveView Debugger documentation site.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvKGXRNo-_E – YouTube video showing the new features in LiveView Debugger v0.7.

https://x.com/swmansionelixir/status/2034650679986327924 – Announcement of a new version of the fully browser-based Elixir Language Tour, with an expanded Processes chapter covering Links, Agents, GenServers, and Supervisors.

https://elixir-language-tour.swmansion.com/introduction – The Elixir Language Tour - a browser-based interactive tour running Elixir in WebAssembly via Popcorn.

https://elixirforum.com/t/gettext-sigils-a-sigil-for-using-gettext-with-less-boilerplate-and-better-readability/74645 – Elixir Forum post introducing gettext_sigils, a library that wraps gettext helpers into a sigil for less boilerplate.

https://github.com/zebbra/gettext_sigils – gettext_sigils - a library that simplifies gettext usage with a ~t sigil, e.g. ~t"Hello, #{user.name}" instead of gettext("Hello, %{name}", name: user.name).

https://peterullrich.com/a-devcontainer-for-elixir – Blog post by Peter Ullrich - "A Devcontainer for Elixir" - on running Elixir in a dev container for safer LLM-assisted coding.

https://containers.dev/ – The open specification for enriching containers with development-specific content and settings.

https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/tree/main/.devcontainer – Anthropic's dev container used as the starting point for Peter Ullrich's Elixir dev container.

https://github.com/PJUllrich/devcontainer – Peter Ullrich's Claude-based Devcontainer for Elixir development with Phoenix, Claude Code, and optionally Tidewave.

https://x.com/josevalim/status/2034952526039056700 – José Valim responds to a "What Would José Valim Do?" Claude memory prompt shared by an Elixir developer, offering his actual advice which differed from the LLM's take on behaviours and abstractions.

https://x.com/sorentwo/status/2036839452102840414 – Announcement of Oban v2.21, Pro v1.7, Web v2.12, and Met v1.1 with workflow tracking, rate limiting, chunk performance improvements, and more.

https://oban.pro/docs/pro/changelog.html#v1-7-0-rc-0-2026-03-23 – Oban Pro v1.7 changelog.

https://hexdocs.pm/oban_web/overview.html – Oban Web documentation.

https://github.com/oban-bg/oban/releases/tag/v2.21.0 – Oban v2.21.0 release notes on GitHub.

https://x.com/akoutmos/status/2036556722584670292 – Announcement of Litestream v0.5, a complete overhaul of the Elixir wrapper for Litestream SQLite backups.

https://litestream.io/ – Litestream - continuously streams SQLite changes to cloud storage like S3 for no-worry backups.

https://github.com/akoutmos/litestream – Litestream - an Elixir library wrapping Litestream for easy SQLite database backups, now at v0.5 with individual backup strategies under the Litestream.Strategy namespace.

https://github.com/akoutmos/litestream/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md – Litestream changelog detailing the v0.5.0 overhaul.

https://marketing.erlef.org/events/malaga-unconf.html – EEF Málaga Unconference - a community-driven one-day pre-ElixirConf EU event on April 22, 2026, featuring Elixir talks, a Nerves workshop, and a GRiSP hardware workshop.

Do you have some Elixir news to share? Tell us at @ThinkingElixir or email at [email protected]

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