There are several different LSP implementations of Elixir, each with their own pros and cons. Last year they all agreed to collaborate on an LSP; is this going to be the result of that?
The architecture is remarkable. The lengths they’ve gone to for language version compatibility, and protecting app namespaces is especially impressive.
Namespaces aren't so much a concept in Elixir, but this refers to the names used for things like modules. Expert will rewrite the code of its "engine" so that the engine's code and dependencies and those of the application it is embedded into don't overlap.
gonglexin 12 hours ago [-]
I’ve been switching between different LSP implementations for Elixir—ElixirLS, Lexical, next-ls—and have been following Expert for a while. Really looking forward to trying it out!
That said, the only thing that feels a bit off to me is the name “Expert.” It comes across slightly arrogant or presumptuous—like it’s implying it’s the only “expert” in the room. Maybe something more neutral would’ve been better?
Still, excited to see what the official tooling brings!
lionkor 11 hours ago [-]
It's not an AI tool. It's an LSP. It is the expert in the room, because it's not a random word generator, not smart, it just follows the rules that the language has.
phinnaeus 9 hours ago [-]
How did you find out about it in the first place? I remember seeing the Elixir blog post announcing the LSP project ages ago and then nothing since then.
buzzerbetrayed 6 hours ago [-]
Do you frequent elixirforum.com? That’s where the elixir community resides. Jose and Chris post frequently there. As well as maintainers of popular libraries.
atonse 9 hours ago [-]
I found the name to be perfect. Just a little fun. It also goes with the ex-prefix you see in libs sometimes.
heeton 9 hours ago [-]
You're overthinking it. I'd rather have interesting than milquetoast.
SwiftyBug 11 hours ago [-]
How about "Fairly Knowledgeable, Always Humbly Ready to Learn from Others"?
FKAHRLO for short.
heeton 9 hours ago [-]
Nailed it
vendiddy 8 hours ago [-]
how about "NotExpert"
ashton314 18 hours ago [-]
Oo I’m excited for this. The old official language server is fine—it does its job on most of the code bases I’ve worked on, but occasionally I will do something funny that makes the compiler slow down and that pummels the LS performance. I hope this works out some of the kinks that occasionally would make elixir-ls slow.
mtndew4brkfst 12 hours ago [-]
Nit: there has never been an official LSP implementation until now, only community-authored. Even now no Dashbit employees or language core members are directly involved in this project in an ongoing basis.
IMO that contributes powerfully to the quality of the experiences of using any of the options.
atonse 3 hours ago [-]
Excited to see this after the blog post a year ago – I didn't realize they were working out in the open, because I was wondering how that project was going.
Any news on when we can start to use it in our editors?
Jtsummers 2 hours ago [-]
> Any news on when we can start to use it in our editors?
Cool to see there's a long term plan for the language and the ecosystem!
epiccoleman 19 hours ago [-]
Oh I'm excited for this. Editor support for elixir has never been quite as good as I'd like. I'm really happy to see they're investing in this - no lang with as consistently great a developer experience as elixir should be without a proper, official, well supported lang server.
Can't wait to try it out!
st3fan 8 hours ago [-]
What does "official" mean? Is it an official elixir-language project? I don't see Jose Valim as one the contributors.
Yes, it is, as you can see by being under the `elixir-lang` github org
DrBenCarson 7 hours ago [-]
“Official” means built by the creators of Elixir itself
Elixir has more contributors than just Jose (though he is the OG / creator / leader)
mtndew4brkfst 5 hours ago [-]
As with my comment in another tree, no, none of the Elixir core team or Dashbit employees are directly involved with this effort, though they may be advising informally and will likely submit a PR here and there.
It has both a justfile and a makefile at the root, even. Most of us seem to want to use it to throw make away entirely.
That said, I consider `just` very language-agnostic and useful because of that, and I consider mix pretty bad at any workflow needs that isn't directly concerned with BEAM.
zamalek 21 hours ago [-]
It's not technically a make replacement (make does do things like incremental build management etc.), but it just goes to show how bad the DX of make is.
0x457 20 hours ago [-]
IMO 'just' replaces make where make shouldn't be used - generic task runner.
nesarkvechnep 10 hours ago [-]
Correct. Make should be used with the filesystem, minimising PHONY.
MangoToupe 21 hours ago [-]
I think it's hard for me to name better software than make. TeX, maybe? that seems like an insanely high bar to clear.
mtndew4brkfst 12 hours ago [-]
I would say there's an ocean of software with better UX than those two, so it all comes down to what axis you measure on.
https://elixir-lang.org/blog/2024/08/15/welcome-elixir-langu...
https://github.com/elixir-lang/expert/blob/main/pages/archit...
That said, the only thing that feels a bit off to me is the name “Expert.” It comes across slightly arrogant or presumptuous—like it’s implying it’s the only “expert” in the room. Maybe something more neutral would’ve been better?
Still, excited to see what the official tooling brings!
FKAHRLO for short.
IMO that contributes powerfully to the quality of the experiences of using any of the options.
Any news on when we can start to use it in our editors?
https://github.com/elixir-lang/expert/blob/main/pages/instal...
Can't wait to try it out!
Elixir has more contributors than just Jose (though he is the OG / creator / leader)
https://dashbit.co/#team https://elixir-lang.org/development.html#team https://github.com/elixir-lang/expert/graphs/contributors
That said, I consider `just` very language-agnostic and useful because of that, and I consider mix pretty bad at any workflow needs that isn't directly concerned with BEAM.
Website: https://just.systems
Previous HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42351101
https://hexdocs.pm/tidewave/mcp.html
1. too many layers and worse DX
2. harder realtime updates