Elixir not only provides software projects with the performance they require; the programming language also allows apps to assist organizations in ways they never imagined possible.
In this article, we will go through the fundamentals of Elixir, its Erlang structure, and its advantages over a slew of other “latest and best” technologies.
What exactly is Elixir?
Elixir is a computer language for the Erlang virtual machine (VM). Elixir was built on top of Erlang to address concurrency issues in earlier generations of backend solutions. The result is a functional, concurrent language that shares Erlang concepts for constructing distributed, fault-tolerant applications.
The power that fuels Elixir’s capabilities is Erlang. It’s a battle-tested 30-year-old language designed to manage worldwide telecom networks yet has numerous forward-thinking capabilities. Consider zero downtime, self-healing capabilities, and the capacity to manage in-place application updates while running in production. The ability to publish code updates in real-time gives a program a cutting-edge vibe.
What Makes Elixir Special?
Engineering teams are under growing pressure to use innovative technology to address challenging business trials. The newest programming languages frequently overwhelm them. Meanwhile, the apps they are required to deliver are expected to function at the best level possible.
Flexibility, scalability, and speed — achieving and sustaining these ideal performance qualities necessitate a tried-and-true solution that does not pose a significant risk. Elixir, built on Erlang, a technology already used by multibillion-dollar businesses, is precisely that.
Other advantages of Elixir programming
Elixir is straightforward to use, thanks to its precise, familiar syntax and mature tools system. The language has built-in unit testing and documentation to verify that the software works properly. Other advantages include:
Pattern matching – This compelling feature replaces imperative code with declarative code, making code less error-prone and more legible — and therefore more manageable. To put it another way, instead of creating code that explains how to extract data from a structure, developers create a pattern that matches the data structure itself, and the extraction is done automatically as a result.
Memory: Elixir’s memory management design enables linear scaling. The program never grinds to a standstill since each process controls its own memory, and there is less processing time required for cleaning up “junk” code. Other work can be done in parallel with a garbage collection operation on a multi-processing computer.
Scalability – Elixir software programs aim to be as efficient as possible by utilizing all of the cores of a CPU. There is no need to do anything extra; the Erlang VM handles resource distribution automatically. Multi-core CPUs were formerly prohibitively costly, but their prices have dropped substantially, making them an excellent choice when using Elixir.
Who can Use Elixir?
Bleacher Report was an early adopter of Elixir. The sports and sports culture news publisher wanted to get breaking news articles to its app users as fast as possible, but it was taking roughly three minutes from the time the content was pushed through the system to the time readers could access it. The firm began with 150 Amazon Web Services (AWS) instances, overburdened servers with data requests, and substantial development manpower overhead.
Bleacher reduced a third of its AWS instances after switching to Elixir, and server response time decreased to 10-30 milliseconds. Furthermore, it was able to better deploy engineering resources by reducing the number of servers required. Bleacher push alerts were able to reach subscribers in about three seconds as a consequence of these enhancements.
Elixir is also used in various other industries, including automotive, information technology, and communications and collaboration.