&gt; if you ever used Django, raise your hands if you&#x27;ve ever had to delve into the source code to understand what is going on<p>This is a sentiment I don&#x27;t understand at all. Why <i>wouldn&#x27;t you</i> delve into the source code of tools you use? I do this with almost all the tools I use, be it languages or libraries (obviously I don&#x27;t use non-opensource ones if I can avoid it). Looking inside libraries teaches you quite a lot and isn&#x27;t even that difficult, especially if your editor+language combination support &quot;Jump to Definition&quot;.<p>I think we&#x27;d be much better off, as an industry, if people learned to appreciate code reading. This would make writing readable code more desirable in the first place, which would be really great.<p>And BTW, Django has a really good looking codebase. You shouldn&#x27;t start your reading with SQL compiler in the ORM, but, for example, class-based and generic views are a nice starting point. Another related codebase I can recommend is Django Rest Framework - really a must read for pythonistas who use Django.<p>&gt; using large libraries feels too much like magic<p>That&#x27;s actually my biggest gripe with Elixir. The fact that it happens on compile time (using) and not at runtime doesn&#x27;t make its magic less magical. And it&#x27;s very often not documented appropriately. The docs or examples tell you to `use` a module and that&#x27;s it - you don&#x27;t know what symbols are imported, let alone what the module macros will do with your code. And it&#x27;s hard to tell by just looking at the module in question, because - macros. I can deal with it, but in general Elixir should either document its macros better or make things much more explicit.<p>&gt; I&#x27;ve had a fling with Go, I really like some of its ideas, namely static linking, native compilation, no exceptions, easy deploy<p>Take a look at OCaml. All the features you mention and a non-brain dead type system on top of that. Multicore is a problem, but I hear it&#x27;s improving fast.<p>&gt; It&#x27;s a mix between Haskell without purity and types and Clojure without parens, with a Ruby-style syntax and a battle-tested framework for concurrency and distributed computing.<p>That&#x27;s probably the least flattering description of Elixir I&#x27;ve ever read. Haskell without purity and types would be utterly broken and useless. Similarly for Clojure and sexps. Elixir is neither - it is a nice langauge in its own right.<p>&gt; I know I talk like a fanboy [...]<p>Well, I like Elixir too, there&#x27;s nothing wrong with it. Really, Elixir has many nice features and a great potential; it&#x27;s still growing, I think, and needs a bit more time to really mature, but is a viable choice for some projects already.