What is Elixir

It's a functional language
Concurrent
Fault-tolerance
Distributed
Extensible

Who uses Elixir

Basic Types

Key takes

Elixir uses `snake_case` for variables
There are lot of data types you need to explore
Remember that some operators had `/` followed by a number? well keep that in mind...its called arity

Lists and Tuples

(Linked) Lists

Implemented as Linked Lists
Stored as non contiguous
Appending is Slow, Prepending is fast
Can store any type of data
Calculating length is slow

Tuples

Stored as a contiguous structure
Accessing any index is really fast
Updating a tuple is expensive
Can store any values
If you want to return multiple values
from a function, tuple is the way to go

What the heck is Immutability?

// JavaScript - Mutable array example
function addNumbers(numbers) {
    numbers.push(4);         // adds to end
    numbers[0] = 99;        // changes first element
    numbers.sort();         // sorts in place
    return numbers;
}

const numbers = [1, 2, 3];

console.log('Before:', numbers);
// Before: [1, 2, 3]

addNumbers(numbers);
console.log('After:', numbers);
// After: [2, 3, 4, 99]

// Original array was mutated!
console.log('Original array changed:', numbers);

As you can see original data is changed

If we refer this again it may lead to errors

This is common for objects as well

Problem of immutability exists in OOP based languages like Java, C# etc

We had a bug in AB due to mutability

Solution was to just not mutate original arrays

They are super hard to track 😒

Functional programming removes mutability

Which eliminates a whole class of bugs by design

Maps
and
Keyword Lists

Maps

Maps are simply HashMaps
- In JS you call this an object
- In python this is called a dictionary
Its mostly the "go to" data structure in FP
Maps keys are unordered
Keys and Values can be just anything you want

Keyword Lists

They are just lists with few special properties
- Keys must be atoms
- Keys are ordered, as specified by developer
- Keys can appear more than once
Often used for passing optional arguments to functions

Pattern Matching

💡New Concept

= is match operator
use pin (^) to match with existing values
Heart of Functional Programming
is Pattern Matching
It allows you to write code without thinking about the underlying data in an imperative way
Your code will be much more readable

Functions

and

Modules

You can group functions nicely
We previously encountered several modules
- Map
- Keyword
- List
- File
They are not classes !!!
Module names are in PascalCase
- MyApp.Billing
- MyApp.WebHooks.Stripe
These names are not bound to any file, so you
can even create Foo.Bar.A.B.C as a module name

Control Flow

In elixir every statement returns a value
So we dont have early returns(no return keyword)
Instead focus on breaking logic into smaller
functions
use pattern matching on function heads with guards
use if/unless, case, cond, with to control the flow
often paring with other concepts
In elixir its common to pattern match on function heads, this is also a control flow
Pattern matching is the key for everything

Pipes |>

Pipes allows you to write less codes
Often you can see the flow of data when
using pipes making code much more clear
Its common to use pipe for operations
involving enums or streams

Structs

They are super powered maps
Allows us to do compile time checks
Data validation
Structure code well

Looping

We dont have loops

Because we cant mutate

Loops often have a variable for condition
Some loops involves mutating a counter
We cant do that in elixir
So how we do it in FP then?

for (let i = 0; i < 5; i++) { // we cant do i++ in Elixir
    console.log(i);
}

Recursion with Meeseeks

Recursion
- Its a powerful tool
- With Pattern matching it becomes natural
- Tail recursion acts like a for loop
Enum.each like functions
List comprehensions
- Looks like for loops, but they arent
- Really handy to generate stuff

Error Handling

In Elixir often we use tuples to represent
results, and use pattern match on them
In rare cases we can opt into try/catch/rescue
- Its very uncommon 🤯
If a function raise an exception, we use !
- Like File.read!/1

Important
Notes

Data Structures are immutable, if you want to update
replace entire thing at once
Pattern Matching is the Key
Think in terms of functions and composing
functions(like composing react components)
Break your logic
Some conventions
- odd? - the ? denotes that function returns
  a boolean
- read! - ! denotes the function may raise an
  exception

What about State?

If its immutable how we can hold state?

Processes

Elixir is built on top of BEAM VM
BEAM VM was developed to run Erlang
Erlang has a concept called `Process`
- Not to confuse with processes in OS
All the code you saw running inside processes
Its the only base in Elixir/Erlang for concurrency
They are cheap in terms or Memory and CPU 💸
You can have thousands or more processes running
at same time 🤩
You can pass messages between processes

Rise of

Telecom Systems need to be reliable and highly available(non-stop)
At that time(in the 80s) telephone switches were written using C
Upgrading the software of these switches was hard
- Specially when people still calling someone all the time
People at Ericcson wanted to solve this problem
They created Erlang as the solution

Joe Armstrong

Creator of Erlang

📖 Thesis of Erlang

The Lost OOP

It was developed considering cells in a biological
systems
Cells can communicate with other cells through
various ways, like in human body with electrical signals
Even though cells are self contained, these coordinated messages can make them do complex tasks
- Ever imagined how you can lift a weight? its
  your nervous system sending messages to muscle
  fibers
- Ever imagined how your immune system works?

Father of OOP

Dr Alan Kay

In orignal OOP Concept

There were no classes
- So no Blueprint nonsense 😃
No mutability, you need to pass a message
to an entity, the entity can decide how to process
the message
Messages are processed sequentially
Erlang is the closest thing to this original concept
as for today

Erlang is similar to
Actor model

But they developed it separately

Concurrency

NodeJS is single threaded
- Node has an event loop which handles
  workload
- No multicore support
Java, C#, C++ are multi threaded
- Has multi core support
Go, Erlang/Elixir are concurrent
- Can be used with multicores and even single
  cores

NodeJS Event Loop

Multi Threading is superb

but...

Complexity with Threading/Concurrency

Shared resources
- One of more thread can modify/access
  data without coordination leads to
  unpredictable behaviours
Race Conditions
Deadlocks and Starvation
Coordination becomes complicated
Error handling is complex

Deadlock

Race Condition

Whats the cause?

Mutable data structures
No data isolation
Coordination is complicated

Solutions

Mutexes
Semaphores
synchronized - Java
and others tools based on lang

Mutexes

Semphore

Erlang got you 🙌

Processes are isolated
- No shared memory or state
- No one can modify state
- Immutable data structures
- Functions are thread safe by default 🤩
- So no mutexes or semaphores
Message Passing
- Mailbox process messages in arrived order
- So no sync issues
Fault Tolerence
- Crashing doesnt bring everything down
Efficient Scheduling
- Lightweight processes
- Preemptive Scheduling in BEAM

In Node, if unhandled exception was thrown, it can bring down entire system

So don't even worry

GenServer

"Generic Server"

GenServers allows you to hold complex State
Its coming from OTP(Open Telecom Platform)
handle_call is replying to the caller (who is waiting).
handle_cast is fire and forget, caller doesn't wait
handle_info handles any other message

Supervisors

Fault Tolerance is built in
Use Supervisors to handle issues with
processes and take actions
There are other supervisors like
DynamicSupervisor
Recover from errors without bringing
everything down

"Let it Crash"

This is for unexpected errors only

Open Telecom Platform

Its not about Telecom

GenServer/Supervisor are a part of
OTP platform created on top of Erlang
Back then Erricson developed a platform
abstracting useful concurrency patterns under
OTP
Later they made it publicly available
OTP is the center of any modern Elixir app

Tooling

mix is your new npm
hex.pm is your npm.com
iex is your new node repl
- Most of the time you will use iex
ElixirLS, Lexical are VS Code Extensions
for code completion(Language servers)
mix format is your prettier
credo is your eslint
hexdocs is where you go for docs

Ecosystem

We will explore them practiaclly

Phoenix Framework - Your web framework
- Its similar to Express/Nest/FastAPI
- Supports real time connections out of the
  box. So no need of Socket.io/WebSockets
- Highly scalable
Ecto - Database ORM and Query builder
- Similar to Objection/Knex/Kysely
- Closer to SQL
Oban - Schedule jobs
- Similar to PgBoss
Broadway - Build data pipelines
- Supports RabbitMQ, SQS, Google PubSub
Cachex - A distributed cache
- Similar to Redis

Req - a HTTP client
- Similar to Axios
Jason - a JSON library
- Next elixir release will have built in JSON
ExAws - AWS for elixir
stripity_stripe - Stripe for Elixir
LiveView - A realtime way to build UIs
- Similar to React/Vue + WS

Erlang/Elixir has a rich standard library

Thinking
in

Elixir

Think of the Happy path
Think of creating small reusable functions
Worry less about data mutations
Clear concise codes showcasing
underlying business requirements
Be better programmers
- Working with Elixir made me a better
  programmer with other langs

After you took some Elixir

It's not a silver bullet

Its not easy to onboard devs
We wont possibly hire elixir devs
- We can hire node devs, but not elixir
- Instead we have to train them
Limited number of libraries
- You may find that most libraries arent
  there for elixir
Types - Its not typesafe like Typescript
- There is an ongoing effort to bring types
DX is not great
- Ongoing effort to make ElixirLS better
Learning curve
- Functional programming re-wire your
  brain

Where to get help?

Don't be afraid to ask questions

When i started, i was always asking questions from experts

The Art of

What is Elixir

Who uses Elixir

Let's Get Started

Basic Types

Key takes

Lists and Tuples

(Linked) Lists

Tuples

What the heck is Immutability?

We had a bug in AB due to mutability

They are super hard to track 😒

Functional programming removes mutability

Maps and Keyword Lists

Maps

Keyword Lists

Pattern Matching

💡New Concept

Functions

and

Modules

Modules

Control Flow

Pipes |>

Structs

Looping

We dont have loops

Error Handling

Important Notes

QnA

:stop 🕰️

Welcome Back

What about State?

Processes

Rise of

Creator of Erlang

The Lost OOP

Father of OOP

In orignal OOP Concept

Erlang is similar to Actor model

But they developed it separately

Concurrency

NodeJS Event Loop

Multi Threading is superb but...

Complexity with Threading/Concurrency

Deadlock

Race Condition

Whats the cause?

Solutions

Mutexes

Semphore

Erlang got you 🙌

So don't even worry

GenServer

Supervisors

"Let it Crash"

This is for unexpected errors only

Open Telecom Platform

Tooling

Ecosystem

Erlang/Elixir has a rich standard library

Thinking in

Elixir

It's not a silver bullet

Where to get help?

Don't be afraid to ask questions

QnA

The End

Leap of Faith

The Art of Elixir

The Art of Elixir

Kasun Vithanage

More from Kasun Vithanage

Maps
and
Keyword Lists

Important
Notes

Erlang is similar to
Actor model

Multi Threading is superb

but...

Thinking
in