Just a few thoughts and links that didn't get into the already massively overtime talk.
#Phoenix Showdown Benchmark
https://github.com/mroth/phoenix-showdown
The google-cloud based tests did not acheive the same numbers that were published with the Rackspace setup (I followed their methodology and used the same wrk test loads). You'd need quite a few more client connections than they used to get there. Neither Phoenix nor Rails used more than 50% of the cpu available.
On my own bare-metal test server (E5-2620 v1, 128GB ram) I see a 16.75x difference between Phoenix and Rails request/second. [I did deviate from the showdown and pushed the load until I started getting errors.]
The Plug version is worth looking at since it shows just how stripped down you can go.
#Where To Go Next Both José and Chris's talks from NDC 2015 should be your next stops. The documentation at elixir-lang.com is worth the time. Programming Elixir by Dave Thomas is the standard goto book.
Idioms for building distributed fault-tolerant applications w/ Elixir - José Valim
Phoenix - a framework for the modern web - Chris Mccord
Programming Elixir: Functional |> Concurrent |> Pragmatic |> Fun
Phoenix Guides - Wealth of information.
The Slack & irc channels are active and I'm amazed at how quickly people respond on twitter. @chrismccord follows the @elixirphoenix closely and responds quickly.
Elixir Sips is worth the $9 month. They are short, focused and often results in the 'ah, that's how I need to do that' moments.
If you get stuck, feel free to let me know.
#My Own Experiences My web app is not deployed yet (long boring story) but is getting very close. We have used Elixir in a backend ETL processes that run nightly since January. The use of pattern matching in the function definition makes the code much easier to read and follow.
As I said, the biggest issues is thinking too much in Ruby/Rails terms and not enough in functional terms. The fact that I've spent a couple of years doing functional programming helps but isn't required at all. I really like that Elixir allows you to enter the functional world incrementally. Just don't think this is Ruby/Rails on Erlang, those similarities are only skin deep.
#Where Not To Use Elixir Elixir/Erlang isn't for every problem. Compute intensive apps should stick to native code and gpu offload. GUI's don't do well either. Web apps fit Elixir/Erlang especially well.
#Exlir Conf - Austin Elixir Conf happens at the beinging of October in Austin. Tickets are still available. [It's also held across the street from the best camera store outside NYC. There's also training the day before, I'm going to Chris McChord's one on Advanced Phoenix.]