Ruby + Elixir: Polyglotting FTW!

The talk titled "Ruby + Elixir: Polyglotting FTW!" presented by Benjamin Tan at the Red Dot Ruby Conference 2014 explores the integration of Ruby and Elixir, two distinct programming languages.

Main Topic:

The presentation focuses on encouraging Ruby developers to consider Elixir as a complementary language that enhances development capabilities, particularly in areas like concurrency and fault tolerance.

Key Points Discussed:

- Background on Elixir:

- Elixir is a functional language built on the Erlang virtual machine (BEAM) and is praised for its concurrency features and fault tolerance capabilities.

- Developed by José Valim, Elixir leverages Erlang's strengths while introducing a modern syntax and features appealing to Ruby developers.
- Concurrency in Elixir:

- Elixir handles concurrency through lightweight processes that are managed by the BEAM, allowing for millions of processes to run simultaneously with minimal overhead.

- Communication between processes occurs via message passing, which adds a layer of safety by preventing shared state corruption.
- Fault Tolerance:

- A core philosophy in Elixir is “let it crash,” meaning that rather than defensive programming, developers are encouraged to design processes to fail gracefully, often managed by supervisors that can restart failed processes automatically.
- Distributed Systems:

- Elixir allows for seamless interaction between nodes, enabling the development of distributed applications where processes can communicate effectively regardless of location.

- Tan provides a demonstration of a distributed system designed to find prime numbers, showcasing Elixir’s simple inter-process communication model.
- Integration with Ruby:

- The speaker illustrates how to utilize Elixir within Ruby applications, specifically through integration with Sidekiq for background job processing.

- This involves creating Elixir workers that push jobs to a queues monitored by Sidekiq, demonstrating Elixir's versatility and inter-language operability.
- Developer Experience:

- Tan emphasizes Elixir's focus on programmer happiness, likening it to Ruby’s core philosophy.

- He notes that transitioning to Elixir can enhance a developer’s ability to handle complex problems more efficiently and introduces them to new paradigms of programming.

Conclusion:

Tan concludes by encouraging Ruby developers to explore Elixir, highlighting its robust features that can complement Ruby applications without requiring a complete migration. He mentions working on a book about Elixir, inviting further exploration into its capabilities.

Ruby + Elixir: Polyglotting FTW!
Benjamin Tan • June 26, 2014 • Singapore • Talk

As developers, we know that we should use the right tool for the right job. While we may love Ruby, there are also many interesting technologies that may complement our favourite programming language.

This talk introduces Elixir, a programming language that is built on the legendary Erlang virtual machine. I will first give a quick walk through of the language, focusing on core concepts such as concurrency and fault tolerance - areas where Elixir shines.

After that, we will dive straight in to an example application to see how Ruby can exploit the powerful features of Elixir. More importantly, the audience would realise that there's more to Ruby than just Ruby.

It will be a fun ride!

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Red Dot Ruby Conference 2014