We talk with Marc-André Lafortune about reducing Elixir project compile times. On larger projects, when a single file like a view template is changed and over 100 files get recompiled, there is something wrong. Marc-André explains how he identified the problems in his project and contributed to Elixir’s mix xref tool making it easier for us to find those problems in our own projects! We cover how these tooling improvements were used to improve the upcoming Phoenix 1.6 and Elixir 1.13! An additional mix xref flag was added to run CI checks on our code to prevent accidentally adding code that slows our compile times.

Show Notes online - http://podcast.thinkingelixir.com/60

Elixir Community News

https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2021#most-loved-dreaded-and-wanted-language-love-dread – Elixir is number 4 among the "most loved" languages on Stack Overflow's developer survey
https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2021#section-top-paying-technologies-top-paying-technologies – Elixir is number 3 in highest paid languages on Stack Overflow's developer survey
https://github.com/nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter/pull/1645 – Neovim adds tree-sitter (a syntax parser) support for the Surface library
https://github.com/surface-ui/surface_tailwind/issues/1#issuecomment-884981076 – Surface Catalogue to continue and may redesign the UI using TailwindCSS
https://github.com/phoenixframework/phoenix/issues/4403#issuecomment-895354673 – Phoenix 1.6 possibly released this week?

Do you have some Elixir news to share? Tell us at @ThinkingElixir or email at show@thinkingelixir.com

Discussion Resources

https://twitter.com/josevalim/status/1421912595456569351 – Thread talks about the change
https://groups.google.com/g/elixir-lang-core/c/Hmg5y8S3v4E/m/FVK50RWBAQAJ?pli=1 – Elixir core mailing list where feature was discussed
https://hexdocs.pm/mix/master/Mix.Tasks.Xref.html#module-understanding-the-printed-graph
https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir/pull/11044 – Add "--label compile-connected" option to mix xref graph
https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir/pull/11048 – Add "--fail-above" option to mix xref making it good for CI systems
https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir/pull/11049 – Support multiple sinks and sources in mix xref graph
https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir/pull/11162 – Update docs
https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir/pull/11080 – Rely on modification time and hash to determine modified sources
https://dashbit.co/blog/speeding-up-re-compilation-of-elixir-projects – Blog post on recompilations
https://github.com/phoenixframework/phoenix/issues/4408 – Example 1 of sneaky macros introducing compile-time dependencies
https://github.com/phoenixframework/phoenix/issues/4409 – Example 2 of sneaky macros introducing compile-time dependencies
https://exercism.io/tracks/elixir
https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv
https://rvm.io/
https://www.super.mx/
https://xkcd.com/303/
```
--label compile-connected
```
```
--fail-above
```

Guest Information

https://twitter.com/malafortune – on Twitter
https://github.com/marcandre/ – on Github
http://blog.marc-andre.ca/ – Blog

Find us online

Message the show - @ThinkingElixir
Email the show - show@thinkingelixir.com
Mark Ericksen - @brainlid
David Bernheisel - @bernheisel
Cade Ward - @cadebward

60: Compile Faster with Marc-André Lafortune

Thinking Elixir Podcast

60: Compile Faster with Marc-André Lafortune