José Valim, Creator of Elixir

Today on Elixir Wizards we are joined by none other than José Valim, the inventor of Elixir! Coming from the Ruby on Rails world, José found his way to functional programming and we hear all about the evolution of his philosophy and thought process around the time of the creation of the language. He gives us some great insight into why functional programming is so appealing to him and the problems he wanted to solve by creating Elixir. We chat about other languages and his use of Erlang, Elixir's three biggest influences and some important characters in the story. José also shares a bit of personal, behind the scenes stuff about his schedule and how he tries to stay as productive as possible. We finish off the chat, talking about performance and the measures José has taken in this regard. For all this and more from a true Elixir wizard, be sure to tune in!

Key Points From This Episode:

• José's thoughts on our recent podcast name-change!
• The first steps for José in the process of writing a language.
• Reason for José's decision to step out of the Ruby on Rails world.
• The 'aha' moment that José had when moving into functional programming.
• Some of the inspiration for Elixir from other languages.
• A few of the people that have mentored and inspired José in his career.
• The research and development phase for Elixir and José strategy for this.
• José's work habits, his typical day and the influence of his kids on his flow.
• Why José still considers himself an Elixir programmer despite his proximity.
• Elixir and machine learning; why the two are not more closely linked.
• Steps in the measurement process for José and Elixir.
• The time that José has spent on the performance side of the language.
• Sacrifices and substitution in optimizing Elixir's performance.
• Some of the things on the horizon that are exciting José.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

SmartLogic
José Valim
Plataformatec
Harry Potter
Erlang
Ruby
Clojure
ElixirConf

Special Guest: José Valim.