How ironic, I was wondering just last night when 1.2 would be released.<p>I'm a newcomer to Elixir, and have really been enjoying it. As a Python->Rubyist, it's been really interesting to finally hit a functional language, and some of Elixir's most basic features just seem crazy in comparison to what I've come from. Some neat examples:<p>* Pattern Matching. In other words- you don't assign things to variables, you match things. Elixir/Erlang is just doing algebra behind the scenes. I'm sure this is a gross simplification, but it's enabled me to write some really condensed code that still makes a bunch of sense.<p>* Streams. I know Node developers would laugh at this being a new concept, but I hit Streams when I was doing Node, and I didn't get it. Streams in Elixir feel much more self-evident, and feel much easier to read.<p>* The Pipe Operator( |> ). This effectively lets you simplify code by just passing results from one thing to the next. For example(taken from the excellent "Programming Elixir" by Dave Thomas):<p>$ (1..10) |> Enum.map(&(&1*&1)) |> Enum.filter(&(&1 < 40))<p>=> [1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36]<p>So there, it takes the 1..10 range, maps the squares of each element to an array, then filters the array to just the elements that are less than 40.<p>It's a surprisingly enjoyable language to program in, and best of all coming from a Rubyist- the performance gains are automatic, especially once you grok some of Elixir's crazier(but easy to understand) powers.<p>-----<p>The other thing I really like about it, is how friendly the community seems. I feel personally predisposed toward extremely friendly communities- Ember.js was the first community that made me feel like I had a home- and the care with which Jose Valim and the core team treat people, and the general "Give back everything you can" attitude of the community is really just inspiring.<p>My newest side project was something I dropped because I thought that the hardware necessary would make it not worth the effort of building it, but now I have complete confidence in it.<p>I encourage you to take a shot at it if you're looking for a fast, functional language with a clear syntax and easymode concurrency.