If you're going to try and use this analogy, you need to compare Elixir to Kotlin or Scala or Clojure rather than Java. Elixir is a language written for the BEAM which was created for Erlang. The BEAM happened to be useful VM for these other languages such as Elixir, Gleam, LFE, & Luerl.
For Java you need a JRE and JDK depending on whether you're just running or also building. That they are bundled (for Windows) is slightly convenient, but they're not bundled on Linux so what you're saying is OS dependent
And CPython runs Python bytecode, which is basically running in a Python virtual machine.
I am not sure what GP is objecting to.
> I am not sure what GP is objecting to.
Elixir always felt like it would be a solid functional systems programming language, so not having a compiled backend is a genuine downside.
Read again...
Here's what you need to do for elixir:
Download and run the Erlang installer Download and run the Elixir installer
Here for Java: Download and run the Java SDK
And for Python: Download and run the Python installer
If you're going to try and use this analogy, you need to compare Elixir to Kotlin or Scala or Clojure rather than Java. Elixir is a language written for the BEAM which was created for Erlang. The BEAM happened to be useful VM for these other languages such as Elixir, Gleam, LFE, & Luerl.
No, I don't. I'm not writing gleam etc for the same reasons.
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For Java you need a JRE and JDK depending on whether you're just running or also building. That they are bundled (for Windows) is slightly convenient, but they're not bundled on Linux so what you're saying is OS dependent
JRE or JDK, not "and". The JDK is a superset of the JRE.
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Is your issue something with the runtime itself, or just the difficulty of installing it?
I think the issue is "I have to install two things instead of one thing" which is a pretty weird way to judge a programming language.
I guess we know how he feels about TypeScript.
> Download and run the Erlang installer Download and run the Elixir installer
No, you just install the elixir package from a package manager. Windows not including a proper one by default is not a fault of the language.
To use Python/Java you have to download and install an OS. (Though some versions might run on bare metal)
Here's what you need for Java:
Download SDKMan/Jenv
Install the version(s) of Java you need for your projects
Make sure your JAVA_HOME environment variable is set
Ensure your IDEs locate the correct Java home
Compared to all that, Elixir's two installers are trivial.
And if you have a competent package manager, you can just tell it to get Elixir and it'll handle Erlang for free.
No you don't. The process is exactly the same for Java.
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