The Greener Gras

Should a Ruby developer migrate into Elixir territory? I gave this talk at https://rubyconference.by 2020.

Transcript

1. THE GREENER GRASS
   Stefan Wintermeyer - @wintermeyer
   

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2. Ruby or Elixir?
   Spoiler alert:
   It’s not a technical decision.
   The 5 most active programming languages on GitHub:
   JavaScript, Python, Java, Rust, PHP
   

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3. http://www.website.com
   My First Commercial Webpage (1997)
   https://web.archive.org/web/19970413021718/http://www.swreisedienst.de/
   

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4. http://www.website.com
   My First Online Shop (1997)
   http://www.website.com
   https://web.archive.org/web/19970413021718/http://www.swreisedienst.de/
   https://web.archive.org/web/19970413021718/http://www.swreisedienst.de/
   

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5. My First Online Shop was written in Delphi (1997)
   http://www.website.com
   https://web.archive.org/web/19970413021718/http://www.swreisedienst.de/
   

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6. Programming Languages I’ve Used For Online Shops Since
   Language Server OS Development OS Framework
   Delphi Win 3.11 Win 3.11 -
   Perl Linux Linux -
   PHP Linux Linux and macOS -
   Ruby Linux macOS Ruby on Rails
   Elixir Linux macOS Phoenix Framework
   

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7. Biggest Pain = Paradigm Changes
   Language Programming paradigm
   Delphi Procedural
   Perl Procedural
   PHP Procedural
   Ruby Object-oriented
   Elixir Functional
   

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8. Ruby Elixir
   vs
   

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9. Ruby was published in
   1995 by Yukihiro
   Matsumoto for
   developer’s happiness.
   

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10. Elixir was created in
    2011 by José Valim to
    be a real concurrent
    language.
    

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11. Titlelize Code Example
    "ExMachina Hits 1.0 - More Flexible, More Useful and Support for Ecto 2.0"
    => "exmachina-hits-1-0-more-flexible-more-useful-and-support-for-ecto-2-0!
    Ruby Elixir
    https://thoughtbot.com/blog/elixir-for-rubyists
    

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12. Don’t let the easy to read
    Elixir syntax fool you into
    believing it’s painless to learn.
    Functional is a totally
    different ball game!
    

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13. Regular Switching
    Between Elixir And Ruby
    Back And Forth Results In
    Technical Jet Lag.
    

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14. We all know about Ruby.
    But what do people do with Elixir?
    

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15. Nerves Is An Astonishing Elixir Project
    Craft and deploy bulletproof embedded software in Elixir.
    • Raspberry Pi
    • BeagleBone
    • Generic x86_64
    https://www.nerves-project.org
    

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16. Nerves Example: FarmBot https://farm.bot
    

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17. vs
    But 99% Of The Discussion is Rails vs. Phoenix
    

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18. Fun fact: All players have a solid Ruby on Rails background.
    @josevalim @dhh @chris_mccord
    

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19. Ruby on Rails Doctrine
    "Optimize for programmer happiness"
    Me thinking: But I have been very unhappy with
    some gems and very happy with Phoenix.
    https://rubyonrails.org/doctrine/
    

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20. Phoenix Framework
    "Build rich, interactive web applications quickly, with
    less code and fewer moving parts"
    Me thinking: But I have done rich interactive web applications with Rails too.
    https://www.phoenixframework.org
    

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21. How does the 15 Minute Blog example hold on in 2020?
    DHH’s 2005 grandfather screencast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gzj723LkRJY
    

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22. Ruby on Rails
    @dhh
    

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23. $ rails new my_blog
    $ cd my_blog
    $ rails g scaffold post title body:text
    $ rails db:migrate
    $ rails server
    # Open http://0.0.0.0:3000/posts
    Fun fact:
    $ my_blog:> tree | wc -l
    19572
    

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26. Phoenix Framework
    @chris_mccord
    

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27. $ mix phx.new my_blog
    $ cd my_blog
    # configure database in config/dev.exs (no SQLite )
    $ mix ecto.create
    $ mix phx.gen.html Blog Post posts title body:text
    # add "resources "/posts", PostController" to router.ex
    $ mix ecto.migrate
    $ mix phx.server
    # Open http://0.0.0.0:4000/posts
    

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31. How Big Is The Community/Visibility?
    

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32. Twitter Followers
    428 K
    16 K
    @dhh
    @chris_mccord
    

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33. Stackoverflow
    Questions
    GitHub
    Contributors
    Ruby on Rails 319,073 4,252
    Phoenix
    Framework
    3,436 877
    

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34. Phoenix USPs
    Performance/Speed Scalability
    High-Availability Systems
    Hot Deployment
    

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35. "… Phoenix has delivered
    15x better performance
    than Rails …"
    https://medium.com/@elviovicosa/phoenix-vs-rails-benchmark-2019-f0e68336d557
    

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36. What should I use?
    

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37. Use Elixir/Phoenix if performance is paramount.
    Technically it is the best choice!
    

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38. Use Elixir/Phoenix if your
    team doesn’t have (much) Ruby knowledge yet.
    Technically it is the best choice!
    

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39. Use Ruby/Rails for all other cases.
    

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40. A bad programmer can write a slow program in Assembler.
    A good programmer can write a fast program in Visual Basic.
    Jon von Tetzchner told me that some 20 years ago.
    

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41. Do or do not.
    There is no try.
    Stefan Wintermeyer
    sw@wintermeyer-consulting.de
    @wintermeyer
    

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