On today’s episode, Elixir Wizards Owen Bickford and Dan Ivovich compare notes on building web applications with Elixir and the Phoenix Framework versus Ruby on Rails. They discuss the history of both frameworks, key differences in architecture and approach, and deciding which programming language to use when starting a project.

Both Phoenix and Rails are robust frameworks that enable developers to build high-quality web apps—Phoenix leverages functional programming in Elixir and Erlang’s networking for real-time communication. Rails follows object-oriented principles and has a vast ecosystem of plug-ins. For data-heavy CRUD apps, Phoenix's immutable data pipelines provide some advantages.

Developers can build great web apps with either Phoenix or Rails. Phoenix may have a slight edge for new projects based on its functional approach, built-in real-time features like LiveView, and ability to scale efficiently. But, choosing the right tech stack depends heavily on the app's specific requirements and the team's existing skills.

SmartLogic.io

Today on Elixir Wizards, Manuel Rubio, author of Erlang/OTP: A Concurrent World and Dan Plyukhin, creator of the UIGC Actor Garbage Collector for Akka, join host Dan Ivovich to compare notes on garbage collection in actor models.

The discussion digs into the similarities and differences of actor-based garbage collection in Erlang and Akka and introduces Dan's research on how to perform garbage collection in a distributed actor system.

Erlang/OTP Volume 1: A Concurrent World by Manuel Rubio https://altenwald.com/en/book/en-erlang-i 

Special Guests: Dan Plyukhin and Manuel Rubio.

In this episode of Elixir Wizards, Katelynn Burns, software engineer at LaunchScout, and Alexis Carpenter, senior data scientist at cars.com, join Host Dan Ivovich to discuss machine learning with Elixir, Python, SQL, and MATLAB. They compare notes on available tools, preprocessing, working with pre-trained models, and training models for specific jobs.

The discussion inspires collaboration and learning across communities while revealing the foundational aspects of ML, such as understanding data and asking the right questions to solve problems effectively.

https://launchscout.com/

Special Guests: Alexis Carpenter and Katelynn Burns.

This week on Elixir Wizards, Connor Rigby, Software Engineer at SmartRent, and Taylor Barto, Lead Embedded Software Engineer at Eaton, join Sundi Myint to compare notes on embedded systems development with Elixir, C, C++, and Java. They discuss using Elixir and the Nerves framework for firmware projects versus more traditional choices like C. The guests ask one another questions and gain valuable insights into challenges, tooling, resources, and more across different embedded ecosystems.

In this episode, the guests expand their perspectives and demystify the concept of embedded systems for engineers outside the field. This cross-language exchange of ideas and experiences inspires continued learning and collaboration between embedded software engineers using different programming languages.

Nerves: https://github.com/nerves-project/nerves

Special Guests: Connor Rigby and Taylor Barto.

In Episode 4, the Elixir Wizards are joined by Dorian Iacobescu, author of the ECSpanse ECS library for Elixir, and Daniel Luu, founder and CEO of the game development studio AKREW. The guests compare notes on backend game development using ECS, the Entity Component System approach.

Akrew is currently building the multiplayer game Galactic Getaway using the Photon Unity networking framework, which employs ECS. They discuss challenges like collections of component types and persistence beyond runtime, building games for various platforms like MacOS, and handling inventory storage in a backend database.

Game development is complex and has many technical hurdles, but open communication across different programming communities and game development approaches can foster collaboration, innovation, and continued learning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entity_component_system

Special Guests: Daniel Luu and Dorian Iacobescu.

This week, the Elixir Wizards are joined by Yohana Tesfazgi and Wes Bos to compare notes on the experience of learning Elixir vs. JavaScript as your first programming language. Yohana recently completed an Elixir apprenticeship, and Wes Bos is a renowned JavaScript educator with popular courses for beginner software developers.

They discuss a variety of media and resources and how people with different learning styles benefit from video courses, articles, or more hands-on projects. They also discuss the current atmosphere for those looking to transition into an engineering career and how to stick out among the crowd when new to the scene.

https://syntax.fm/

In today’s episode, Sundi and Owen are joined by Yordis Prieto and Stephen Chudleigh to compare notes on HTTP requests in Elixir vs. Ruby, JavaScript, Go, and Rust. They cover common pain points when working with APIs, best practices, and lessons that can be learned from other programming languages.

Yordis maintains Elixir's popular Tesla HTTP client library and shares insights from building APIs and maintaining open-source projects. Stephen has experience with Rails and JavaScript, and now works primarily in Elixir. They offer perspectives on testing HTTP requests and working with different libraries.

While Elixir has matured, there is room for improvement - especially around richer struct parsing from HTTP responses. The discussion highlights ongoing efforts to improve the developer experience for HTTP clients in Elixir and other ecosystems.

Elixir-Tesla Library: https://github.com/elixir-tesla/tesla

Special Guests: Stephen Chudleigh and Yordis Prieto.

Hosts Dan Ivovich, Owen Bickford, and Sundi Myint kick off the 11th season of the Elixir Wizards podcast. This season’s theme is “Branching Out from Elixir,” which expands the conversation to compare notes with experts from other communities; they discuss their experiences with other languages like JavaScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, C#, Go, and Dart before and after learning Elixir.

This season's conversations will illuminate how problems are solved in different languages vs. Elixir; upcoming episode topics teased include education, data processing, deployment strategies, and garbage collection; the hosts express excitement for conversations analyzing similarities and differences between communities.

https://smartlogic.io/

It’s the Season 10 finale of the Elixir Wizards podcast! José Valim, Guillaume Duboc, and Giuseppe Castagna join Wizards Owen Bickford and Dan Ivovich to dive into the prospect of types in the Elixir programming language! They break down their research on set-theoretical typing and highlight their goal of creating a type system that supports as many Elixir idioms as possible while balancing simplicity and pragmatism.

José, Guillaume, and Giuseppe talk about what initially sparked this project, the challenges in bringing types to Elixir, and the benefits that the Elixir community can expect from this exciting work. Guillaume's formalization and Giuseppe's "cutting-edge research" balance José's pragmatism and "Guardian of Orthodoxy" role. Decades of theory meet the needs of a living language, with open challenges like multi-process typing ahead. They come together with a shared joy of problem-solving that will accelerate Elixir's continued growth.

Bringing Types to Elixir | Guillaume Duboc & Giuseppe Castagna | ElixirConf EU 2023

Special Guests: Giuseppe Castagna, Guillaume Duboc, and José Valim.

Phoenix core team members Chris McCord and Jason Stiebs join Elixir Wizards Sundi Myint and Owen Bickford the growth of Phoenix and LiveView, the latest updates, and what they're excited to see in the future. They express excitement for the possibilities of machine learning, AI, and distributed systems and how these emerging technologies will enhance the user experience of Elixir and LiveView applications in the next decade.

Key Topics Discussed in this Episode:

Links Mentioned in this Episode:

Fly Site https://fly.io/

Special Guests: Chris McCord and Jason Stiebs.