Programming Language Atlas

A structured reference to language families, paradigms, and implementations

Elixir

Functional, concurrent, actor-based. First appeared 2012; ml and functional; distributed and real-time services.

Record

First appeared2012
FamilyML and functional
Paradigm emphasisFunctional, concurrent, actor-based
TypingDynamic, strong
MemoryPer-process GC
ExecutionBytecode VM (BEAM)
Primary domainDistributed and real-time services
DesignersJosé Valim
Referencehttps://hexdocs.pm/elixir/
Last verifiednot yet checked against its source by a human

Dates are first public release or publication, not the start of internal development. Colour on the typing and memory tags encodes kind, never rank.

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Influence

Erlang1986Ruby1995Clojure2007Gleam2019Elixir2012
Figure 1. Elixir in the influence graph: recorded ancestors on the left, languages that record it as an influence on the right. Every node links to its own record. Edges name indexed languages only, so an empty side means no indexed relative, not none at all. Source: languages.json.

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Within the ML and functional

Algebraic data types, exhaustive pattern matching, and inference-driven typing. The source of most type-system features adopted by mainstream languages since 2010.

Language First appeared Typing Memory Execution
ML 1973 Static, strong, inferred Tracing GC Compiled or interpreted
Erlang 1986 Dynamic, strong Per-process GC Bytecode VM (BEAM)
Haskell 1990 Static, strong, inferred Tracing GC AOT compiled
OCaml 1996 Static, strong, inferred Generational GC AOT compiled or bytecode
F# 2005 Static, strong, inferred Tracing GC (.NET) Bytecode + JIT
Gleam 2019 Static, strong, inferred Per-process GC Compiled to Erlang or JavaScript
Unison 2020 Static, strong, inferred Tracing GC Interpreted or compiled

7 other languages in this family, ordered by first appearance. Elixir itself is omitted. Source: languages.json.

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