Elixir

Erlang: The Backbone of Elixir

Dive into the powerful foundations of Elixir with this beginner-friendly introduction to Erlang, the language Elixir builds on for concurrency and distributed systems.

Erlang at a Glance

Erlang provides the concurrency model and distributed capabilities that make Elixir so powerful. Understanding its core concepts will enhance your Elixir development journey.

Concurrency

Erlang's lightweight processes enable massive concurrency, essential for Elixir's actor model and real-time web applications.

Fault Tolerance

Supervision trees ensure systems self-heal, a foundation for Elixir's robust applications.

Distributed Systems

Native support for clustering and distributed computing helps build highly available Elixir applications.

Getting Started with Erlang

Erlang Syntax Basics

1> lists:map(fun(X) -> X*X end, [1,2,3,4,5]).
[1,4,9,16,25]
2> Timer = spawn(fun() -> receive after 1000 -> io:put_chars("Hello Erlang"), exit(normal) end end).
<0.64.0>
3> erlang:display("Concurrency is fun!").
"Concurrency is fun!"

Try this in the IEx shell or your favorite Erlang IDE. These examples show list operations with maps and a simple concurrent process.

Key Concepts

Pattern Matching with `=`
Messages with `!`
OTP Behaviors

Why Learn Erlang?

For Elixir Developers

Understand the deeper mechanisms behind Elixir's BEAM performance and concurrency.

For Sys Devs

Build ultra-reliable systems using battle-proven telecom architecture.

Next Steps

Ready to dive deeper? These learning paths will help you master Erlang concepts in the context of Elixir development.

Erlang in Practice

Apply Erlang concepts directly in your Elixir projects with real-world examples.

Start Practicing

Community Tutorials

Explore interactive tutorials from the Elixir community on Erlang integration.

View Examples

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