Elixir is a functional, concurrent programming language that runs on the Erlang virtual machine. It combines the scalability and fault-tolerance of Erlang with a more approachable syntax, making it a popular choice for building scalable, resilient systems that can handle high levels of concurrency, like those chat apps all the cool kids are using these days.

How to use it in a sentence

• I was going to spend my weekend playing video games, but my boss just pinged me and said we need to rewrite our entire backend in Elixir by Monday. Guess I'll be chugging actual elixir to stay awake.

• Sarah tried to sound smart at the tech meetup by saying she's been "dabbling in Elixir", but everyone knows she just watched a 5-minute YouTube intro and called it a day.

If you actually want to learn more...

• The official Elixir website has a getting started guide and tons of resources to dive deeper, if you're into that kind of thing: https://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/introduction.html

• This guy José has a pretty comprehensive blog post on Elixir and the whole Erlang ecosystem, for when you're ready to go down that rabbit hole: https://blog.plataformatec.com.br/2015/05/elixir-in-times-of-microservices/

• And if video is more your jam, this Intro to Elixir tutorial will hold your hand through the basics (don't worry, I won't tell anyone): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBNOavRoNL0

Note: the Developer Dictionary is in Beta. Please direct feedback to skye@statsig.com.