QFM054: Elixir Reading List - February 2025

Source: Photo by Roman Synkevych on Unsplash

February's Elixir reading list showcases both pragmatic solutions and forward-thinking innovations across the ecosystem. This month's collection centres on enhancing developer experience and code quality, with a particular focus on debugging, component design, and integration patterns.

Developer tooling features prominently in LiveDebugger, a browser-based interface that transforms the LiveView development workflow. This tool provides detailed insights into LiveComponents and callback execution, addressing the unique debugging challenges presented by LiveView's stateful architecture. Similarly, the discussion on making Elixir recompile when external files change illuminates optimisation strategies that leverage compile-time computation and the @external_resource attribute. These approaches demonstrate how Elixir's design enables sophisticated tooling that aligns with developer workflows.

We look at code quality and architectural patterns in Good and Bad Elixir which explores common pitfalls in Elixir programming, advocating for more flexible abstractions through Access rather than structure-specific getters. The article's critique of certain piping patterns and higher-order function usage emphasises the importance of composability in functional programming—a cornerstone of maintainable Elixir.

Database integration continues to evolve with Torus, which connects PostgreSQL's search capabilities with Ecto. This library addresses the growing need for search functionality within Elixir apps, supporting various search types while promising future semantic and hybrid search capabilities.

Components and UI architecture receive considerable attention in Surface and Phoenix LiveView, where Marlus Saraiva discusses the evolution from templates to component-friendly approaches. The article highlights Phoenix's journey toward a more composable framework through function components and HTMLEngine + HEEx templates, showing how the ecosystem continues to refine its approaches to building maintainable UIs.

As always, the Quantum Fax Machine Propellor Hat Key will guide your browsing. Enjoy!

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Regards,
M@

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Originally published on quantumfaxmachine.com. Also cross-published on Medium.

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