Ask HN: Who regrets choosing Elixir?

Re:Ask HN: Who regrets choosing Elixir? by eropple on Saturday May 23, 2020 @12:42PM (#23284357)

This may sound like a dismissal, and in a way it is, but: get a better type system, and really understand it. The kinds of logic problems that you describe can be greatly limited—without wasting one’s time—with a more expressive type system. This is one of the reasons I lean so heavily on TypeScript today; I can express my data in the forms it actually should be expressed in, pretty easily, and use that to constrain the logic involved. I can then use features like assert guards (“if this method returns then the listed argument must be type T”) and type guards (if returns at all, the single passed argument must be type T”) to strengthen my understanding of the processes resulting in that data. I can then use a much thinner and much faster to write set of unit tests to proof cross-cutting concerns and integration tests to prove the end-to-end case.

It’s not a false sense of security; it’s automation to cut out the stupid bottom 75% or so of boring-to-write, disastrous-to-screw-up test garbage that we all have better things to do with our time than duct-tape together.

(Also, Dialyzer is pretty bad by comparison to a real type checker. At best it’s spotty and inconsistent, it fails open in weird ways, and libraries rarely implement it. Elixir has an argument for “the least worst dynamically-typed language in common use” but Dialyzer ain’t it.)

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Re:Ask HN: Who regrets choosing Elixir? by crazydoggers on Saturday May 23, 2020 @12:46PM (#23284391)

At the end of the day, it’s about can you deliver that project on time and with limited bugs. Everyone’s experience will be different, so maybe accept that different programmers work better with different systems.

I can tell you with 20 years of programming experience that static type systems don’t make me more efficient... and I’ve used them all.

And just because I can see the reply coming, I’ve worked with programmers using static type checking that have turned out horrible bug ridden code. It’s just not a cure all.

So can we please accept each other’s choices about type systems. “Can’t we all just get along”

Ultimately if it matters to you, then choose what works. But don't assume or try and tell everyone it makes one language definitely better than the other, because things aren’t that simple.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Who regrets choosing Elixir? by eropple on Saturday May 23, 2020 @03:14PM (#23285559)

Put frankly: I’m not going to “accept” that because I’ve watched programmers with twenty years of experience (woe betide me and my mere thirteen!) tank projects through this kind of arrogance. And it is arrogance, to dress up the limitations of a meatbag as a positive against the tireless specificity of the machines.

Then those meatbags realize that they have to refactor their code and the world ends.

The computer is infinitely better at crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s than you are. Or I am. Relying on conscientiousness when you have tools to measure and correct is a sucker’s bet. And I will go so far to say that with the wonderful tools available to us in 2020, dynamically typed languages put “on time” and “limited bugs” in an unnecessary tension.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Who regrets choosing Elixir? by crazydoggers on Sunday May 24, 2020 @02:38PM (#23293560)

Wow... talk about arrogance! I think you’re unclear about the definition of that word. I’m suggesting that developers have choice in what works for a given project. It’s arrogance to think only your choice is correct.

You’re the type of programmer that tanks projects because of that arrogance and an inability to work with other “meatbags”. Maybe for you it’s all about code perfection, but for the rest of humanity it’s about making a product that works, solves a problem, makes the world a better place, or earns a profit.

Too bad my suckers bet has paid off with success and money. Best of luck with your attitude in life.

Guess these Github meatbags have made a suckers bet on a dynamic language. No way they could be efficient or successful maintaining or refactoring a project of that scale. (Yes that’s sarcasm for the sarcastically impaired)

https://github.blog/2019-09-09-running-github-on-rails-6-0/

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Who regrets choosing Elixir? by joelbluminator on Thursday May 28, 2020 @10:04AM (#23337330)

Put frankly: you are talking out of your own experience and extrapolating onto the world. What a shocker that as a Ruby dev I have different views than you, who would have thunk...

[ Parent | on HN ]