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0 pointsdmix2y ago0 comments

I love Elixir and the productivity is probably real, but one big thing I've learned as a senior dev was reflected well in a recent HN post

> Take the road most documented

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39165328

Rails likely has an advantage of documentation given its age and all the major mature businesses using it like Shopify.

A lot of newer languages have documentation/blog posts that's heavily centered around starting out with a new project vs all the bugs with existing Github issues/stackoverflows and design considerations of the framework and 3rd party plugins being fully fleshed out.

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alberth2y ago

> Take the road most documented

I don’t necessarily disagree with that statement.

But it can also lead you to use Java or C, because they are also massively documented & mature. And I don’t imagine that’s the desired outcome either.

gregors2y ago

When Shopify adopted Rails is was quite new technology though...So they literally didn't follow this advice. In fact the CEO was part of the Rails core team.

Here's a talk in 2008 by the CEO about their caching issues

https://www.infoq.com/presentations/lutke-rockstar-memcachin...

dmixOP2y ago

I've been using Rails since 2007 I'm familiar with what it was like back then.

I'm talking about 2024. I have a large tolerance for risk, and I'd be a risk taker for my own new projects or for a very early startup. Or if a tech offered something significantly new and better than the alternatives, like Rails did in 2007 vs PHP.

But now that I'm older, and I value getting things in front of customers with the minimum amount of bullshit. I'm not seeking out learning some fun tech purely for highs of a good fancy new language/framework (I've done that enough). I'd rather not chase down framework bugs. I want to google a bug and see 5 other people already had it.

thibaut_barrere2y ago

I also started using Rails a long time ago (circa 2005), and I have become older too (46 years now).

But I must say I think there is not much bullshit, and quite a bit of stability, in what Elixir / Phoenix bring to the table (saying this after maintaining a production French state-owned service running on top of Elixir for more than 3 years now).

There are also not that much framework bugs, the level of retro-compatibility is huge compared to Ruby in particular (except for LiveView which is still a bit young, but the rest is ... quite stellar).

I quite find that I could use exactly your last paragraph to describe _why_ I wouldn't pick anything else than Elixir these days. The TCO is great, the maintenance story is remarkably stable at the moment etc.

Googling works decently well now with Elixir too, the community is mostly fairly responsive.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

alberth2y ago

> Take the road most documented

I don’t necessarily disagree with that statement.

But it can also lead you to use Java or C, because they are also massively documented & mature. And I don’t imagine that’s the desired outcome either.

gregors2y ago

When Shopify adopted Rails is was quite new technology though...So they literally didn't follow this advice. In fact the CEO was part of the Rails core team.

Here's a talk in 2008 by the CEO about their caching issues

https://www.infoq.com/presentations/lutke-rockstar-memcachin...

dmixOP2y ago

I've been using Rails since 2007 I'm familiar with what it was like back then.

thibaut_barrere2y ago

I also started using Rails a long time ago (circa 2005), and I have become older too (46 years now).

Googling works decently well now with Elixir too, the community is mostly fairly responsive.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse