Are there things Elixir can do that Erlang cannot, or vice versa?
This question is in the context of the Beam VM and the capabilities that it provides, not in the general context of what a Turing complete language can do. I want to invest some time to learn either pure Erlang or Elixir. I get the basic differences between the two and I am leaning towards Elixir because of the macros, better syntax and faster development of the language this day.
My question is: if I choose Elixir, will I stumble on something that I cannot do in it, but can do in Erlang? Can I use all the OTP stuff, all the Erlang libraries, code reload, etc. with Elixir?
I am not asking for someone's preference between the two; just facts about the possibilities of the languages. Preferably from someone who used both in production.
Answer
You shouldn't stumble on anything you can do in one that you can't in the other, since you can freely call Elixir code from Erlang and vice-versa. You can even easily mix Erlang and Elixir files in one project.
In Elixir:
:erlang_module.erlang_function(args)
in Erlang:
'Elixir.ElixirModule':elixir_function(args)