Why Elixir Is The Programming Language You Should Learn In 2024

Elixir is a popular low-latency and high-concurrency language first introduced in 2011 by Ruby developer and member of Rails Core Team José Valim. Since its release, there has been a huge increase in the demand for Elixir developers. Elixir programming language is used to develop websites having a high traffic load and applications that are highly scalable, such as messaging apps and networking sites. 

In this blog, we will talk about why you should learn the Elixir language in 2024. So let’s get right into it.

Ever-rising Elixir Language Popularity 

Elixir's acceptance by countless elite companies and industries is pretty much proof of its growing popularity. Elixir’s popularity is attributed to several factors:

1. Productivity

Elixir is highly regarded for its productivity, optimizing coding efficiency, and enabling the delivery of more functionality with less code.

2. Robust Environment

Elixir offers a robust environment with cohesiveness, easy navigation, useful documentation, and robust tooling, enhancing the development experience.

3. Concurrency

Elixir is known for its robust concurrency support, enabling the development of highly reliable, efficient, and performance-oriented applications.

4. Versatility

Numerous sectors find the language appealing because it is utilized in a broad range of fields, such as web development, web application development, machine learning,  and multimedia processing as well. 

5. Stack Overflow Developer Survey

Stats show that the Elixir programming language's popularity is increasing with time. According to the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2023, Elixir has gained much popularity and is the second most admired language, right after Rust.

What Key Features Does Elixir Offer?

Elixir language has a long list of admirable features that make it the most sought-after programming language currently. It is mostly used for developing applications that are scalable and maintainable. It can be employed in a variety of industries, including web development, embedded software, machine learning, and data pipelines.

A few of the most prominent features of Elixir programming language are: 

• Elixir is a functional programming language that compiles to bytecode for the Erlang VM
• Elixir has a strong emphasis on recursion and higher-order functions
• Because Elixir uses dynamic typing, all types are verified during runtime as compared to compilation.
• Elixir has integrated tools for managing dependencies, compiling code, remote debugging, and other tasks.
• Elixir uses the power of the Erlang virtual machine (VM) to simplify the writing of concurrent, scalable, and fault-tolerant applications.

Top 7 Reasons To Learn Elixir Programming Language In 2024

Gaining knowledge of Elixir will prepare you for the advanced future and provide you with the ability to work with revolutionary technologies. Developers should strongly consider learning Elixir in 2024 since it is a robust programming language that performs exceptionally well when creating scalable applications and websites with a lot of traffic.

There are many reasons for learning the Elixir coding language, let’s have a look at some of the most important and prominent ones.

1. Learning Elixir is Fun

One of the main reasons so many programmers choose Elixir programming is because it is considered a ‘fun language’ to learn. Elixir programming is similar to Erlang (for obvious reasons) and Ruby since they both have similar clean syntax and flexibility. They both are easy to learn, highly scalable, and readable.  

According to Dave Thomas, a Computer programmer, “The Elixir programming language wraps functional programming with immutable state and an actor-based approach to concurrency in a tidy, modern syntax. And it runs on the industrial-strength, high-performance, distributed Erlang VM. But what does all that mean?”

One thing that frustrates programmers mostly is altering the existing code without changing its external behavior. While doing so, even the slightest mistake can cause further complications in the whole process.

However, when it comes to Elixir, it has an immutable nature, which makes the whole testing and refactoring process a lot easier compared to the rest of the programming languages, allowing programmers to alter existing code without much hassle.

2. Elixir Functional Programming Meets Modern Development Demands

You must wonder from time to time - Is elixir growing in popularity? The answer is right in front of you - more now than ever before. It may be relatively new, but continuously gaining popularity among the community of developers and businesses alike.

Why? As the world goes through a digital shift, there’s a lot of burden on the system to manage and handle the huge number of concurrent users.

However, since Elixir runs on BEAN VM, the programming language is concurrent, and it can easily handle the increase in the number of users.

Additionally, Since the language has concurrent functioning. It can handle a lot of processing and several functions at the same time without any delay.  If you’re not sure of what concurrent programming refers to – it is a programming technique that makes use of context switching, which means that programmers can work on different tasks and get them completed simultaneously.

3. Learning Elixir Opens Endless Doors Of Opportunities

Despite being a relatively young programming language, Elixir is swiftly gaining popularity among programmers. Also, many big companies are using Elixir within their tech stacks such as Pinterest, Moz, WhatsApp, Discord, PepsiCo, Bleacher Report, etc.

According to the Stack Overflow Developer Survey, since its release back in 2011, Elixir has become the most loved programming language. Also, more and more companies are looking to adopt Elixir in the coming years, hence the demand to hire Elixir developers is also expected to further increase. 

Therefore, we can also expect more jobs and more rewarding career progression for programmers who choose to learn the Elixir language.

4. Nothing Beats An Active And Supportive Community

All new programming languages start with a small community and Elixir was no different. However, over the past few years, Elixir’s community has increased fairly and today it has an actively growing community that shows no signs of slowing down.

Events held all around the globe such as Code Elixir, LDN, EMPEX, Gig City Elixir, and  ElixirConf in Europe and the US are helping the language get a further boost in the world of programming. 

Since the Elixir community is so large, programmers can easily share their knowledge regarding the language and ask any questions they might have. Other than this, there are also hundreds of Elixir language tutorials and learning guides available online, which can be very helpful for beginners.

Moreover, if you want to dig deeper, you can always find Elixir language reviews online - shared by developers.

5. Elixir Programming Offers A Range Of Useful Tools

With the help of tools, tasks are made easier and programming languages are made more versatile. Hence, there’s no need to write new code from scratch for every other use case. 

There are plenty of powerful tools available for Elixir, such as Phoenix LiveView, that allow programmers to code front-end web applications in real-time without having to work with Crawly or JavaScript, making Data Scraping and web crawling much more effective in Elixir. 

Moreover, many developers often get confused between choosing Elixir vs Python. No doubt, python is a robust object programming language. But if you are looking for concurrency, functionality, and Erlang VM - you should choose Elixir. On the other hand, Python is known for great libraries and clean and readable code. 

6. Help Improve Your Skills In Other Languages

Speaking of improving skills and learning new tools, there are many Elixir web frameworks, and as mentioned earlier, Phoenix is one of the best web frameworks for Elixir. Phoenix programming language is perfectly capable of building scalable and reliable web experiences, so to speak. Therefore, you can broaden your knowledge and horizons if you choose to learn Elixir. 

According to reviews from programmers who have come from different programming backgrounds, and have learned Elixir, the language helps them excel in their careers and allows them to become better programmers in their preferred programming language.

Your programming approach is highly affected by learning a new purely functional programming paradigm. Doing so can help improve your problem-solving capabilities and enhance your thinking skills. Regardless of which programming language you are using, this fresh perspective is very useful for all of your future developments.

Also, since Elixir is a new programming language, it helps programmers get used to new techniques that they wouldn’t be able to come around to using older tech.

7. High Fault-Tolerant Language

Unlike many other programming languages, Elixir is highly fault-tolerant for example: if your software is built using Elixir, a simple bug in the system will not be able to fail the entire system. Whereas if you are using other programming languages, a single bug can make the entire system crash.

Since it uses multiple concurrent nodes, elixir prevents network, bugs, and other hosting issues from upsetting the software operations. 

Working with Elixir programming language with higher degrees of fault tolerance along with clear testing and debugging is a whole different vibe and experience and one of the many reasons why you should learn Elixir in 2024. 

Key Takeaway

If you are still wondering whether Elixir is a good programming language or not, the answer is simple: It is a very functional and dynamic programming language as it is built on top of Ruby and Erlang.

Since the benefits of Elixir programming language are many and it is so easy to work with and learn, it usually takes less than a week to get a hang of it. Also if you are looking to develop high-performing and scalable products such as web applications then you should use the elixir programming language. 

Considering how quickly the user base of the Elixir language is increasing, it can be said that it has a bright future. So if you’re still wondering ‘should I learn Elixir programming language’? We would suggest you go ahead and try it out.