Hey there, and thanks for stopping by!
I really appreciate you taking a bit of your time to read this. This post kicks off what I’m calling my “Learning Elixir Journey”, and in it, I want to share what led me to explore Elixir—especially when there are already so many hyped languages out there like Rust, Python, and others.
I’ve been working as a front-end developer for nearly five years now, mostly living in the world of React and Next.js since day one. And honestly, I’m super grateful for that ecosystem—it’s helped me land a job, build a career, and support a pretty comfortable life.
React’s always had a special place for me. Sure, there’s a new JavaScript framework popping up every week, but despite all the noise, I’ve stuck with React. It’s been reliable. Familiar.
But lately… something’s been off.
The JavaScript world moves so fast. Too fast, sometimes. Things blow up overnight and vanish just as quickly. It started to feel like I was being swept along by a current I didn’t ask to ride. I remember thinking, “Can we just slow down a bit?”
See, I’m not the kind of dev who likes chasing trends or trying every new tool for the sake of it. I care more about the concepts behind the tools—architecture, design patterns, the why behind the what. And to be honest, that’s what started bugging me: too many folks around me were using tools they didn’t really understand.
Take a friend of mine, for example, he’s super into state management libraries like Redux and Zustand. But when I asked him why those tools work the way they do, or what problems they’re actually solving under the hood, he didn’t really have an answer. Just a lot of surface-level enthusiasm.
I used to be in that same place. And at some point, I decided I didn’t want to be that kind of developer anymore.
That’s when I started building my own tools—state management, i18n, date pickers, even an ESLint plugin or two. I wanted to understand how things worked, not just use them. And you know what? I learned more than I ever expected. I don’t regret a single moment I spent going down that path.
But it came at a cost.
All that time I spent digging deep made me realize just how “fake” a lot of this world can feel. Shiny tools, loud opinions, surface-level understanding. I wanted something more grounded. More thoughtful. More… real.
And that’s when I found Elixir.
Before I stumbled upon Elixir, I was seriously considering diving into Go or Rust. I even gave both of them a try—wrote some code, followed a few tutorials—but for some reason, they just didn’t click for me.
Don’t get me wrong—both are amazing languages with strong communities and solid engineering behind them. But for whatever reason, I couldn’t find that spark, that “aha” feeling that makes you want to keep going, you know?. Maybe I’m just not ready for them yet. Maybe they just didn’t speak to the kind of developer I am right now. And that’s okay.
Elixir gave me back that feeling I’d been missing for a long time like discovering a hidden gem. I guess I’m lucky I never shy away from a bit of challenge,
I’ve learned so many new concepts along the way — OTP, the BEAM VM, memory compaction and fragmentation, the actor model, the difference between processes and threads — and all of it has reignited my passion for programming. It’s like my developer spirit woke up again.
So yeah, I’m really excited to share my journey learning Elixir with all of you. If you’re feeling stuck or restless like I was, maybe it’s time to take a step back and search for that thing your developer soul has been craving. Trust me, when you find it, you’ll come out on the other side feeling like a whole new person.
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