ricketycricket

Joined 11 years ago

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338
Submissions
118
Member since
Sep 18
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Recent submissions

Comment · 1 month ago
I maintain Elixir and Rails applications. In my opinion, almost all LLMs handle Elixir better. I suspect, though do not know, being an immutable functional language and composing applications in a functional style makes it easier for the models to "reason" about the code and state. I learned very quickly that this is my preferred language for that very reason.

Additionally, the features available in the BEAM and OTP mean the agents have built-in tools for many things that would require reaching for 3rd-party libraries or even additional services. This means less variability in design as the models will happily use all the language features human developers would have to learn about and understand over time to use effectively. Not that this isn't important, but I believe models do a better job steering you to obvious and optimal solutions with Elixir.

The new type system is only going to make it better.

Comment · 1 month ago
Comment · 1 month ago
It legally wasn't harassment. If it was, he would have not been let go. That word means a real thing and this was not it.
Comment · 2 months ago
There’s absolutely nothing existential about a tiny powder that just combusts very quickly.
Comment · 2 months ago
Said the man with 6 fingers.
Comment · 6 months ago
"Hey Claude, did Claude do a good job?"
Comment · 8 months ago
Just build Mac apps then. Claude Code can help you whip up real native apps without any Glaze dependencies just fine. I’ve built 4 Mac and iOS apps in the last 6 months for my own use. I even have my own HN app for iOS and Mac.
Comment · 8 months ago
Here are some thoughts on it from José Valim: https://dashbit.co/blog/why-elixir-best-language-for-ai

LLMs absolutely understand and write good Elixir. I've done complex OTP and distributed work in tandem with Sonnet/Opus and they understand it well and happily keep up. All the Elixir constructs distinct from ruby are well applied: pipes, multiple function clauses, pattern matching, etc.

I can say that anecdotally, CC/Codex are significantly more accurate and faster working with our 250K lines of Elixir than our 25K lines of JS (though not typescript).

Comment · 8 months ago
I have a `codex-review` skill with a shell script that uses the Codex CLI with a prompt. It tells Claude to use Codex as a review partner and to push back if it disagrees. They will go through 3 or 4 back-and-forth iterations some times before they find consensus. It's not perfect, but it does help because Claude will point out the things Codex found and give it credit.
Comment · 1 year ago
I've been using a development server for about 9 years and the best thing I ever did was move to a machine with a low-power Xeon D for a time. It made development painful enough that I quickly fixed the performance issues I was able to overlook on more powerful hardware. I recommend it, even just as an exercise.
Comment · 1 year ago
> I've been coding for decades already, but if I need to put something together in an unfamiliar language? I can just ask AI about any stupid noob mistake I make.

So you aren’t still learning foundational concepts or how to think about problems, you are using it as a translation tool. Very different, in my opinion.

Comment · 1 year ago
It's not though. Processes can be supervised and crashes can just lead to "restart with good state" behavior. It's not that you don't try handling any errors at all, you just can be confident that anything you missed won't bring the system down.

And Elixir is strongly typed by most definitions. Perhaps you mean static?

Comment · 1 year ago
Comment · 1 year ago
LiveView uploads are baked in, previews and all. Everything else you list is included in the Flop library, if you want something off the shelf. In rails you are still including Kaminari or whatever other gems for all this too, so this is really no different.
Comment · 1 year ago
That's so disappointing to hear. I have an intern who hadn't touched Elixir 4 weeks ago who is already making meaningful PRs. She's done the PragProg courses and leans a bit on Copilot/Claude, but she's proving how quickly one can get up to speed on the language and contribute. To hear that a major company couldn't bring resources up to speed, to me, shows a failure of the organization, not the language or ecosystem.

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