Designing Elixir Systems With OTP

When to Leave Elixir

Elixir datatypes are good for many problems, but not all. Data structures built with those types are not always efficient. The classic example is number crunching. If you find yourself working with arrays that you need to update frequently and randomly, you should consider integrating a third-party solution into your program. Such integration strategies are outside the scope of this book, but Adopting Elixir [Tat18] has an excellent treatment of techniques you can use.

A great example of when to leave Elixir is a SQL database. Most projects need one and there’s so much you can gain from it: ACID compliance, transactions, table joins, and the list goes on for miles. Maybe even more importantly, it’s so helpful to be able ...