116: Jerod Santo - Building the Changelog Platform with Elixir and Phoenix

Topics include:

• How pattern matching works in Elixir and why it's more powerful than method overloading in other languages
• How Elixir's pipe operator makes the transition from OO to functional programming more natural
• Why you don't need to be intimidated by unfamiliar features like GenServers to use Elixir for web app development
• Noticeable differences between working with Rails and Phoenix and what it was like to transition
• How the Phoenix ORM makes n+1 queries impossible
• Why background tasks are a lot easier in Elixir than in an ecosystem like PHP
• What other tools and technology power the Changelog platform
• How the Changelog Phoenix app is deployed

Sponsors:

• DigitalOcean, get your free $50 credit at do.co/fullstack
• Cloudinary, sign up and get 300,000 images/videos, 10GB of storage and 20GB of monthly bandwidth for free

Links:

• Building rapid UI with utility-first CSS, Adam's episode of JS Party
• Elixir
• Phoenix
• Chris McCord on The Changelog
• The Changelog source code
• Confident Ruby
• "Why we chose Turbolinks"
• Programming Phoenix book
• Elixir Forum
• Our Slack

Episode source