Ask HN: Is it worth learning Elixir, from a jobs perspective?

Re:Ask HN: Is it worth learning Elixir, from a jobs perspect... by CraigJPerry on Saturday August 14, 2021 @06:36PM (#28184534)

>> How long does it take for an experienced programmer to learn

I'd guess about 2 weeks but I'd be interested to hear other people's take on this. I'd break that down as:

1. The syntax: an hour

2. The rules of the language & the grammar: Under 2 days

3. Ability to write all the idiomatic constructs from muscle memory: Under a week. Timebox yourself to 1.5 days reading the compiler, std library, popular big projects in the language and dedicate the rest of the time to writing

4. The landscape: the common tools, popular and essential libraries, some tidbits of latest news in the community: Under 3 days

You're clearly NOT going to be an expert in the language after 2 weeks but you're going to be productive as an already experienced developer.

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Re:Ask HN: Is it worth learning Elixir, from a jobs perspect... by jacquesm on Saturday August 14, 2021 @08:12PM (#28185080)

There is absolutely no way that you will be as productive as an already experienced developer in two weeks with the Erlang/BEAM/OTP/Elixir stack. It's a completely different world compared to what you are used to, and that's probably a good thing but the time to adapt and become really comfortable is going to be at a minimum closer to a year than a couple of days to weeks.

People who are already familiar with the actor model, soft real time systems, supervision trees and possibly PROLOG would likely move faster.

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Re:Ask HN: Is it worth learning Elixir, from a jobs perspect... by CraigJPerry on Sunday August 15, 2021 @07:31AM (#28187912)

Yeah agreed - my wording is off at the end of my post. A comma makes it slightly better but it’s still not clear:

>> You're clearly NOT going to be an expert in the language after 2 weeks but you're going to be productive, as [you are] an already experienced developer.

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Re:Ask HN: Is it worth learning Elixir, from a jobs perspect... by jacquesm on Sunday August 15, 2021 @10:15AM (#28188900)

Thanks for the clarification. Commas and quotes, the bane of my existence, glad to see I'm not alone :)

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Re:Ask HN: Is it worth learning Elixir, from a jobs perspect... by exdsq on Saturday August 14, 2021 @09:08PM (#28185346)

Why PROLOG?

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Re:Ask HN: Is it worth learning Elixir, from a jobs perspect... by keutoi on Saturday August 14, 2021 @09:42PM (#28185523)

Erlang has a bit of Prolog heritage. You can see it in the Variable-constant and predicate/n syntax, pattern matching, multiple clauses, immutability etc... Do not know eilxir so can not say how much it affects that.

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Re:Ask HN: Is it worth learning Elixir, from a jobs perspect... by k0t0n0 on Tuesday August 17, 2021 @04:39PM (#28214587)

2 weeks? It takes 2 years to learn a new platform/language.

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