Elixir Wizards

Hey everybody and welcome back to Season 2 of the podcast! This season we will be talking about Elixir internals, libraries and the inner workings of the language. In our first episode we are very happy to be joined by Brooklyn Zelenka to start off our journey on the subject with an exploration of her very own Witchcraft.

In this episode we talk to Brooklyn about her history with Elixir, how she got started and what attracts her to it. Brooklyn explains the influence that open source philosophy has had on her career in developing and from there she gives a pretty comprehensive introduction to what Witchcraft is, expanding its key concepts. Although this is quite a high level discussion about Elixir and Witchcraft, we are confident that with Brooklyn's expert help even our most uninitiated listener can get some benefit from our conversation. We also talk about type systems, property-based checking and Dialyzer, so for all of this and more make sure to join us as we kick things off for Season 2!

Key Points From This Episode:

• A quick introduction to Brooklyn, where she works and how she got started with Elixir.
  
• The influence of open source and library contributions on Brooklyn's development.
• Getting to grips with Witchcraft; defining monads and functors.
• Why some of these scary terms do not need to frighten you.
• A few little things that differentiate Witchcraft and some surprising elements.
• The convenient guarantees that Witchcraft provides around your data structure.
• Why there is no type system baked into Elixir; overheads, inputs and outputs.
• Property-based checking and compile times in Witchcraft.
• Merging of Elixir and Dialyzer; benefits and problems.
• Getting in touch with Brooklyn and getting involved with Witchcraft and Elixir.
• And much more!

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Smartlogic — https://www.smartlogic.io/
Brooklyn Zelenka — https://github.com/expede
Brooklyn Zelenka on Twitter — https://twitter.com/expede
Brooklyn Zelenka Email — [email protected]
Fission — https://fission.codes/
Elixir — https://elixir-lang.org/
Witchcraft — https://hex.pm/packages/witchcraft
Dialyzer — https://github.com/jeremyjh/dialyxir

Learn more about how SmartLogic uses Phoenix and Elixir.

Special Guest: Brooklyn Zelenka.

The fields of data science and machine learning are moving ever faster. Jenn Gamble has her finger on the pulse and has become an industry expert with a wealth of experience to her name. As today’s guest, she dives into these rich and often complex topics, and she helps us boil them down into palatable nuggets of knowledge. We start off by asking Jenn about her current role at Very, and she tells us about the nature of her team and the things they’re able to achieve. She touches on what the language markups look like for a data science team, before moving onto her experiences in machine learning and data science. Delving deeper, Jenn tells us why it is not a necessity to have a master’s in data science, and why you can be well enough equipped in other senses to become proficient in the area. Later on, she reveals the differences between Elixir models and data science models. Following these detailed explanations, she furnishes listener’s minds with informative comments on relating the foundations of machine learning to IoT, using priori knowledge to add nuance to your machine learning, and how she envisions the future of data science. Join us today and be sure to get all this, and much more!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Introducing today’s guest, Jenn Gamble.
• Jenn tells us about Very, an IoT engineering firm.
• Hear about the data science team at Very.
• We learn more on what the language markup looks like for a data science team.
• Jenn’s experience in learning machine learning and data science.
• Hear her five-year plan while doing her masters.
• We ask if it’s necessary to have a master’s degree to be well-equipped in data science.
• The difference between an Elixir model and a data science model.
• Jenn elaborates on weights and intuitive algorithms.
• Dealing with N-dimensional matrices.
• Relating the foundations of machine learning to IoT.
• Ways to start building up an intuition around what the most fundamental abstractions are.
• Using priori knowledge to add nuance to your machine learning.
• How Jenn envisions the future of data science.
• Hear about tensors and vectors.
• Jenn tells us about her keynote experience at ElixirConf 2020.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/
Elixir Wizards Discord — https://smr.tl/wizards-discord
Elixir Wizards Email — [email protected]
Jenn Gamble on Twitter – https://twitter.com/jennpgamble
Jenn Gamble on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenn-gamble/
ElixirConf 2020 - Keynote - Jenn Gamble – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btIvtN9ws_I&ab_channel=ElixirConf
IoT – https://www.verypossible.com/careers
Very – https://jobs.lever.co/verypossible
MathWorks – https://www.mathworks.com/products/matlab.html
Cassie Kozykrov – https://kozyrkov.medium.com/
Linear regression – http://www.stat.yale.edu/Courses/1997-98/101/linreg.htm
Pythagorean theorem – https://www.mathplanet.com/education/pre-algebra/right-triangles-and-algebra/the-pythagorean-theorem
Quadratic equation – https://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/quadratic-equation.html
A priori and a posteriori – https://iep.utm.edu/apriori/
Tensor – https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Tensor.html
Vector (mathematics and physics) – https://mathinsight.org/vector_introduction
Coursera – https://www.coursera.org/learn/ai-for-everyone

Special Guest: Jenn Gamble.

While NIFs provide a great way to interface with native code in the BEAM machine, the process can also be rather error-prone. Thankfully, since Isaac Yonemoto built Zigler, things have become a lot simpler, and he joins us today to talk about how. Isaac is an Elixir developer with a background in biotech and we kick off the discussion by hearing about his journey into programming and some of the ways that he has combined it with science. From there we hear more about the different languages Isaac has worked in and why he fell in love with Elixir, where he talks about its encouragement of test-driven development and how this has made him a better programmer. We dive right into the contributions Isaac is making to the Elixir community next, and he starts off by talking about Zigler. He explains how Zigler provides a bridge between Zig and Elixir that makes it far easier to build NIFs. We hear a bunch of the other cool possibilities that Zigler offers to Elixir as well, including its ability to make debugging easier by appending the Zig stack trace to the Elixir one. After hearing Isaac’s opinion of magic in Elixir, we close today's show off with a few of the other projects he is working on, contributions that are bound to make the world of Elixir even more exciting!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Isaac’s early exposure to programming and how he got started in tech.
• The education Isaac had in the sciences and his experience in the biotech sphere.
• Difficulties with installing Ruby and how this led to Isaac learning Elixir.
• Support for asynchronous testing and the reasons why Isaac finds joy in Elixir.
• The emphasis on test-driven development in Elixir and how this has made Isaac a better programmer.
• Isaac’s experiences with Zig and the similarities between it and Elixir.
• How NIFs allow C code in Elixir and what it is like debugging them.
• Isaac’s Zigler project and how it provides integration between Elixir and Zig making it easy to build NIFs.
• Cross-compiling C using Zig and why Isaac built a disassembler.
• Aspects of the BEAM that make it harder to write NIFs in Elixir than in Julia.
• Isaac’s opinion of magic in programming and how it should always be comprehensible.
• Final plugs from Isaac: where to find Zigler, and some upcoming projects.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/
Isaac Yonemoto on Twitter — https://twitter.com/DNAutics
Isaac Yonemoto on GitHub — https://github.com/ityonemo
Isaac Yonemoto on YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCarZZW7eavljSdGRQx9kkSA
Selectrix — https://github.com/ityonemo/selectrix
Mavis — https://github.com/ityonemo/mavis
Chiaroscuro - https://github.com/ityonemo/chiaroscuro
Zigler - https://hexdocs.pm/zigler/Zig.html
Zigler on GitHub — https://github.com/ityonemo/zigler
Julia — https://julialang.org/
Testing Elixir with Jeffrey Matthias and Andrea Leopardi — https://smartlogic.io/podcast/elixir-wizards/s6e6-matthias-leopardi/

Special Guest: Isaac Yonemoto.

The Elixir community continues to flourish and evolve in these uncertain times and in honor of this we have put together a live show with a number of special guests! In part one today, we are joined by Andrea Leopardi and René Föhring, who we are so happy to welcome back. We get the lowdown from each of them in turn, discussing personal preferences, tips and tricks, and recommendations for Elixir and beyond. Andrea gets into some of his pet peeves and comments on the trend of slow interfaces. We then look at future possibilities for Elixir including the outside chance of it being run on mobile and for crypto-mining! Andrea also updates us on the book he is currently working on so keep an eye out for that in the future! René then steps in to talk about his work on Credo, his hopes for it in the future, and some suggestions for listeners using it. We do some comparisons between Elixir and Ruby before René offers some thoughts on Electron and functional programming concepts. So for all this and a whole lot more, make sure to tune in today and stay tuned for part 2!

Key Points From This Episode:

• A reintroduction to Andrea and his current work in the Elixir space.
• Andrea's tool recommendations and what he uses most at the moment.
• Updates, the short term future of the world of Elixir and Andrea's current focus.
• RSpec versus xUnit: Andrea's personal preferences.
• Andrea's limited experience of LiveView and early reactions.
• Feelings about computers and phones with slow interfaces!
• The very slim chances of seeing Elixir run on mobile.
• Cryptocurrency and Andrea's lack of experience and ambition in the space.
  
• Some exciting information about Andrea's upcoming book to keep an eye out for.
• René's current projects; Credo, Elixir weekly newsletter, and more!
• The future of Elixir — will it be the next Ruby?
• Elixir on a phone; René's thoughts on this possibility and its validity.
• Updates for Credo — all the exciting news since our last conversation with René.
• Improving work that you are proud of and René's own feelings about Credo.
• The objectives and vision for Credo and improving upon certain pain points.
• Writing and running in Electron and how to have fun while doing it!
• The application of functional programming concepts in René's work in Electron.
• René's suggestion for Credo — using the Credo master after it being reworked.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/
Elixir Ecosystem Survey — https://elixirsurvey.typeform.com/to/yYmJv1
ElixirConf — https://elixirconf.com/2020
Github Repo for Transcripts Corrections - https://github.com/smartlogic/smartlogic.io/tree/master/podcast/elixir-wizards/transcripts
Andrea Leopardi — https://andrealeopardi.com/
Andrew Leopardi on Twitter — https://twitter.com/whatyouhide
Rene Föhring — http://rrrene.org/
Rene Föhring on Twitter — https://twitter.com/rrrene
Alfred — https://www.alfredapp.com/
Tesla — https://www.tesla.com/
TempleOS — https://templeos.org/
Elon Musk — https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/
Mint — https://www.mint.com/
Finch — https://finch.io/
Ruby — https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/
Electron — https://www.electronjs.org/

Special Guests: Andrea Leopardi and René Föhring.

This week the Thinking Elixir Podcast is taking over Elixir Wizards! Mark & David from Thinking Elixir are here today to parse the particulars of Ecto Queries! Mark Ericksen is an Elixir Specialist at Fly.io and host of Thinking Elixir. David Bernheisel is a Senior Software Engineer at Bitfo and host of Thinking Elixir. Tune in today to learn more about Ecto Queries from today’s special guests, Mark Ericksen and David Bernheisel!

Key Points From This Episode:

• A brief breakdown of today’s topic and introduction to our special guests, Mark & David
• The hosts catch up with Mark & David and learn about David’s new book Ecto In Production
• Dave Lucia is mentioned once again, can we go one episode without talking about him?
• Find out how long David & Mark have been working in databases
• We get the breakdown of what an Ecto Query is
• There is a discussion around schema migrations vs data migrations and how to avoid common pain points
• Learn what resources are available for learning Ecto
• We find out what the pin operator is and when it is used
• What an extensive query is and how to optimize queries
• We learn about fun edge cases that we’ve bumped into while working with Ecto
• The ins and outs of Ecto dump and Ecto load

”Ecto is a whole wide world of information. You think you know a lot and then you realize you don't. Nope, I'm almost just as dumb as I was five years ago about SQL and Ecto. Nope, it evolves. It gets deep.” - Mark Ericksen

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Mark Ericksen on Twitter — https://twitter.com/brainlid
Mark Ericksen on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-ericksen-66397417/
David Bernheisel on Twitter – https://twitter.com/bernheisel
David Bernheisel on GitHub – https://github.com/dbernheisel
David Bernheisel on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernheisel/
Thinking Elixir Podcast https://podcast.thinkingelixir.com/
SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/
SmartLogic Twitter — https://twitter.com/smartlogic
Use The Index, Luke! https://use-the-index-luke.com/
Postgresql Tutorial https://www.postgresqltutorial.com/
Postgresql subqueries
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3004887/how-to-do-a-postgresql-subquery-in-select-clause-with-join-in-from-clause-like-s
https://www.w3resource.com/sql/subqueries/understanding-sql-subqueries.php
Fly Blog: Safe Ecto Migrations https://fly.io/phoenix-files/safe-ecto-migrations/
Crunchy Data Developer Tutorials https://www.crunchydata.com/developers/tutorials
Crunchy Data Postgres Tips https://www.crunchydata.com/postgres-tips
Ecto in Production https://www.ectoinproduction.com/
SQL Join Illustration https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SQLJoins.svg
SQL Join Illustration https://i.stack.imgur.com/UI25E.jpg