ex_tauri
burrito
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ex_tauri
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Building Apps with Tauri and Elixir
This was all in a new library that is still work in progress but very promising. We are eager to get contributions from the community. Learn more at ex_tauri on GitHub.
burrito
- Why are Apple Silicon VMs so different?
- Show HN: Burrito v1.0.0 – Wrap Elixir Apps into Standalone Binaries
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Elixir at Ramp
Most of the BEAM isn't well-suited for trends in today's immutable architecture world (Docker deploys on something like Kubernetes or ECS). Bootup time on the VM can be long compared to running a Go or OCaml binary, or some Python applications (I find larger Python apps tend to spend a ton of time loading modules). Compile times aren't as fast as Go, so if a fresh deploy requires downloading modules and compile-from-scratch, that'll be longer than other stacks. Now, if you use stateful deploys and hot-code reloading, it's not so bad, but incorporating that involves a bit more risk and specific expertise that most companies don't want to roll into. Basically, the opposite of this article https://ferd.ca/a-pipeline-made-of-airbags.html
Macros are neat but they can really mess up your compile times, and they don't compose well (e.g. ExConstructor and typed_struct and Ecto Schemas all operate on Elixir Structs, but you can't use all three)
If your problem is CPU-bound, there are much better choices: C++, Rust, C. Python has a million libraries that use great FFI so you'll be fine using that too. Ditto memory-bound: there are better languages for this.
This is also not borne from direct experience, but: my understanding is the JVM has a lot more knobs to tune GC. The BEAM GC is IMO amazing, and did the right thing from the beginning to prevent stop-the-world pauses, but if you care about other metrics (good list in this article https://blog.plan99.net/modern-garbage-collection-911ef4f8bd...) you're probably better off with a JVM language.
While the BEAM is great at distribution, "distributed Erlang" (using the VM's features instead of what most companies do, and ad-hoc it with containers and infra) makes assumptions that you can't break, like default k-clustering (one node must be connected to all other nodes). This means you can distribute to some number of nodes, but it's hard to use Distributed Erlang for hundreds or thousands of nodes.
Deployment can be mixed, depending on what you want. BEAM Releases are nice but the lack some of the niceness of direct binaries. Libraries can work around this (like Burrito https://github.com/burrito-elixir/burrito).
If you like static types, Dialyzer is the worst of the "bolted-on" type checkers. mypy/pyright/pyre, Sorbet, Typescript are all way better, since Dialyzer only does "success typing," and gives way worse messages.
[1]: https://morepablo.com/2023/05/where-have-all-the-hackers-gone.html
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Building Apps with Tauri and Elixir
The answer was given by the Elixir community with burrito which enables users to pack up everything an Elixir application needs within a binary namely Zig Archiver to package the binary and Zig Wrapper that wraps the Erlang Virtual Machine to be used in multiple platforms (Zig + Rust in the same project 🤯).
- Burrito: Cross-Platform Elixir Deployments
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Is Elixir a good fit for a hobbyist? (Homelab automation/Content Backlog Management)
Might be worth looking into burrito for that use case?
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Which language to choose ?
Elixir is extremely practical for building systems, I know some sysadmin/devops that write their tools in it - which is maybe a bit of a leap for most. It has better support for cli stuff these days but it's not it's strong suit - you can create single-bin packages with stuff like https://github.com/burrito-elixir/burrito or regular "mix releases". (LiveView is very sexy.) It's not statically typed. There is some experimental skunkworks project to add typing to it but probably wont see any public preview until mid/late next year as I understand it.
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Sell me on Elixir
I would consider 1 to be the major blocker but Burrito has addressed many of the concerns here, including cross-compilation. The only downside of Burrito is that the first boot has to unpack the runtime (which is sub-second in my experience).
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FireZone – Tailscale Alternative – The Open Source VPN Server and Firewall
Sure! Elixir's been great. Phoenix is a joy to work with, and many of the concurrency primitives built into OTP make it the perfect foundation for a product like this. And rustler makes it super easy to add low-level / native code.
I will say the big downside to using Elixir is that distributing releases is a bit cumbersome. `mix release` expects that you're building on the same OS / version as you'll be running on, though we're looking into using something like burrito [1] aim to alleviate this.
[1] https://github.com/burrito-elixir/burrito
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Zig monthly, October 2021: Games, gamedev, Elixir, tools and more
I was intrigued so I went to hunt for the Burrito repo [1].
I thought it was some sort of Erlang native compiler written in Zig (which sounds like an incredible pain in the ass), but it's really "just" a cross-platform installer. Still useful !
[1]: https://github.com/burrito-elixir/burrito/issues?q=is%3Aissu...
What are some alternatives?
Electron - :electron: Build cross-platform desktop apps with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS
zig - General-purpose programming language and toolchain for maintaining robust, optimal, and reusable software.
sendgrid-v3 - Haskell Sendgrid v3 API Library
tailwind - An installer for tailwind
Rustler - Safe Rust bridge for creating Erlang NIF functions
rust - Empowering everyone to build reliable and efficient software.
babashka - Native, fast starting Clojure interpreter for scripting
tauri - Build smaller, faster, and more secure desktop applications with a web frontend.
capacitor - Build cross-platform Native Progressive Web Apps for iOS, Android, and the Web ⚡️
Phoenix - Peace of mind from prototype to production