Sure! But this time (tm) it's different. Phoenix is a direct drop-in replacement for rails, with a bunch of strong benefits on top. Getting productive for a rails developer should be 1-2 weeks max, since one already knows how the framework works conceptually. The truly cool stuff happens when one learns how stuff works beneath the surface.
While you're around: Elixir/Erlang in itself is a rather slow language when it comes to number crunching performance. The canonical way currently is to write NIFs in C for these parts. But if this native code crashes, the reliability promise of BEAM goes out the window. For me it would make much more sense to write native extensions in Rust. Have you ever considered to include a plugin to "mix", Elixir's build tool, that allows one to ship Rust source files alongside the Elixir application, which then at compile time fetch a Rust compiler, compiles the code on the current platform and generates a NIF? This would be so huge.
"Drop-in replacement is a term used in computer science and other fields. It refers to the ability to replace one hardware (or software) component with another one without any other code or configuration changes being required and resulting in no negative impacts."
That's not the case at all with Phoenix, nice as it may be.
Everyone always says that :) That said, your sibling comment makes good points here.
> While you're around:
I think this idea is _really_ cool, but I'm not equipped to build such a thing, since I haven't had enough experience with them yet. I agree that that would be super cool.
Truth to be said: there were some good languages but never good frameworks. After rails it's really hard to touch these semi-baked flawed "rails copies". And Phoenix is the first framework that not only replicates good rails sides (other web frameworks failing even that) but also fixes most (actually important) rails issues.
While you're around: Elixir/Erlang in itself is a rather slow language when it comes to number crunching performance. The canonical way currently is to write NIFs in C for these parts. But if this native code crashes, the reliability promise of BEAM goes out the window. For me it would make much more sense to write native extensions in Rust. Have you ever considered to include a plugin to "mix", Elixir's build tool, that allows one to ship Rust source files alongside the Elixir application, which then at compile time fetch a Rust compiler, compiles the code on the current platform and generates a NIF? This would be so huge.