263: Thinking Elixir 263: BEAM Scales from Nano to BBC Big

263: Thinking Elixir 263: BEAM Scales from Nano to BBC Big

July 29, 2025

30:27

About this episode

<p>News includes the BEAM runtime fitting into just 16MB for the GRiSP Nano prototype, the BBC using Elixir to serve most of their web and mobile traffic, GenStage&#39;s pull-based design delivering 50% performance improvements, a new PDF data extraction library that leverages Python through PythonX, AppSignal&#39;s guide to deploying Phoenix with Kamal, an Elixir School lesson on embedding Lua in applications, Peter Solnica&#39;s new inflection library for word transformations, Fly.io announcing Docker Compose compatibility for multi-container deployments, and the full ElixirConf 2025 agenda going live with discount tickets available, and more!</p> <p>Show Notes online - <a href="http://podcast.thinkingelixir.com/263" rel="nofollow">http://podcast.thinkingelixir.com/263</a></p> <p><strong>Elixir Community News</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="https://paraxial.io/?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_campaign=thinkingelixir-july2025" rel="nofollow">https://paraxial.io/</a> – Paraxial.io is sponsoring today&#39;s show! Sign up for a free trial of Paraxial.io today and mention Thinking Elixir when you schedule a demo for a special offer.</li> <li><a href="https://www.grisp.org/blog/posts/2025-06-11-grisp-nano-codebeam-sto?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://www.grisp.org/blog/posts/2025-06-11-grisp-nano-codebeam-sto</a> – GRiSP Nano prototype shows BEAM can run in just 16MB of memory</li> <li><a href="https://grisp.myshopify.com/collections/frontpage/products/grisp-2?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://grisp.myshopify.com/collections/frontpage/products/grisp-2</a> – GRiSP 2 tiny computer available now for BEAM applications</li> <li><a href="https://bsky.app/profile/ettomatic.bsky.social/post/3lua7lpcxi22s?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://bsky.app/profile/ettomatic.bsky.social/post/3lua7lpcxi22s</a> – Bluesky post announcing BBC&#39;s ElixirConf EU talk</li> <li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e99QDd0_C20?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e99QDd0_C20</a> – How Elixir Powers the BBC From PoC to Production at Scale by Ettore Berardi</li> <li><a href="https://careers.bbc.co.uk/job/Senior-Software-Engineer/24846-en_GB/?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://careers.bbc.co.uk/job/Senior-Software-Engineer/24846-en_GB/</a> – BBC job posting for Senior Software Engineer using Elixir</li> <li><a href="https://x.com/accomazzo/status/1945622634731114801?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/accomazzo/status/1945622634731114801</a> – GenStage&#39;s pull-based design explanation with 6-minute video showing 50% speed improvement</li> <li><a href="https://x.com/nelsonmestevao/status/1947087502902231412?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/nelsonmestevao/status/1947087502902231412</a> – X post announcing the pdf_extractor library for data extraction from PDFs</li> <li><a href="https://github.com/nelsonmestevao/pdf_extractor/?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/nelsonmestevao/pdf_extractor/</a> – PDF data extraction library for Elixir</li> <li><a href="https://hexdocs.pm/pdf_extractor/readme.html?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://hexdocs.pm/pdf_extractor/readme.html</a> – Documentation for pdf_extractor library</li> <li><a href="https://github.com/jsvine/pdfplumber?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/jsvine/pdfplumber</a> – Python pdfplumber library that pdf_extractor leverages</li> <li><a href="https://github.com/livebook-dev/pythonx?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/livebook-dev/pythonx</a> – PythonX library for seamless Python integration with Elixir</li> <li><a href="https://podcast.thinkingelixir.com/244?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://podcast.thinkingelixir.com/244</a> – Interview with Jonatan Kłosko about PythonX</li> <li><a href="https://blog.appsignal.com/2025/06/10/deploying-phoenix-applications-with-kamal.html?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://blog.appsignal.com/2025/06/10/deploying-phoenix-applications-with-kamal.html</a> – AppSignal article on deploying Phoenix applications with Kamal</li> <li><a href="https://kamal-deploy.org/?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://kamal-deploy.org/</a> – Kamal deployment tool - Capistrano for Containers</li> <li><a href="https://github.com/elixirschool/school_house?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/elixirschool/school_house</a> – Elixir School open source repository</li> <li><a href="https://elixirschool.com/en/lessons/misc/lua?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://elixirschool.com/en/lessons/misc/lua</a> – Elixir School lesson on embedding Lua in Elixir applications</li> <li><a href="https://hexdocs.pm/lua/?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://hexdocs.pm/lua/</a> – Elixir Lua package documentation</li> <li><a href="https://github.com/tv-labs/lua?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/tv-labs/lua</a> – Elixir friendly wrapper around luerl Erlang package</li> <li><a href="https://github.com/rvirding/luerl?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/rvirding/luerl</a> – Luerl Erlang package for Lua integration</li> <li><a href="https://bsky.app/profile/solnic.dev/post/3luaizmyjvt2c?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://bsky.app/profile/solnic.dev/post/3luaizmyjvt2c</a> – Peter Solnica announces new Inflection library on Bluesky</li> <li><a href="https://github.com/solnic/drops_inflector?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/solnic/drops_inflector</a> – Drops Inflector library for word inflections in Elixir</li> <li><a href="https://bsky.app/profile/fly.io/post/3lt4bjcouwn2y?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://bsky.app/profile/fly.io/post/3lt4bjcouwn2y</a> – Fly.io announces Docker Compose compatibility</li> <li><a href="https://community.fly.io/t/docker-compose-compatibility-the-journey-begins/25285?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://community.fly.io/t/docker-compose-compatibility-the-journey-begins/25285</a> – Fly.io community post about Docker Compose compatibility journey</li> <li><a href="https://community.fly.io/t/using-containers-with-flyctl/24729?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://community.fly.io/t/using-containers-with-flyctl/24729</a> – Guide on using containers with flyctl</li> <li><a href="https://fly.io/docs/machines/guides-examples/multi-container-machines/?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://fly.io/docs/machines/guides-examples/multi-container-machines/</a> – Fly.io documentation for multi-container machines</li> <li><a href="https://elixirstream.dev/gendiff?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://elixirstream.dev/gendiff</a> – David&#39;s Elixir gendiff project</li> <li><a href="https://elixirconf.com/?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://elixirconf.com/</a> – ElixirConf 2025 full agenda now live</li> <li><a href="https://ti.to/elixirconf/2025/discount/ThinkingElixir?utm_source=thinkingelixir&utm_medium=shownotes" rel="nofollow">https://ti.to/elixirconf/2025/discount/ThinkingElixir</a> – ElixirConf tickets with ThinkingElixir discount code for 10% off</li> </ul> <p>Do you have some Elixir news to share? Tell us at <a href="https://twitter.com/ThinkingElixir" rel="nofollow">@ThinkingElixir</a> or email at <a href="mailto:show@thinkingelixir.com" rel="nofollow">show@thinkingelixir.com</a></p> <p><strong>Find us online</strong></p> <ul> <li>Message the show - <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/thinkingelixir.com" rel="nofollow">Bluesky</a></li> <li>Message the show - <a href="https://x.com/ThinkingElixir" rel="nofollow">X</a></li> <li>Message the show on Fediverse - <a href="https://genserver.social/ThinkingElixir" rel="nofollow">@ThinkingElixir@genserver.social</a></li> <li>Email the show - <a href="mailto:show@thinkingelixir.com" rel="nofollow">show@thinkingelixir.com</a></li> <li>Mark Ericksen on X - <a href="https://x.com/brainlid" rel="nofollow">@brainlid</a></li> <li>Mark Ericksen on Bluesky - <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/brainlid.bsky.social" rel="nofollow">@brainlid.bsky.social</a></li> <li>Mark Ericksen on Fediverse - <a href="https://genserver.social/brainlid" rel="nofollow">@brainlid@genserver.social</a></li> <li>David Bernheisel on Bluesky - <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/david.bernheisel.com" rel="nofollow">@david.bernheisel.com</a></li> <li>David Bernheisel on Fediverse - <a href="https://genserver.social/dbern" rel="nofollow">@dbern@genserver.social</a></li> </ul><p>Sponsored By:</p><ul><li><a rel="nofollow" href="https://paraxial.io/?utm_source=thinkingelixir&amp;utm_campaign=thinkingelixir-july2025">Paraxial.io</a>: <a rel="nofollow" href="https://paraxial.io/?utm_source=thinkingelixir&amp;utm_campaign=thinkingelixir-july2025">Paraxial.io is sponsoring today's show! Sign up for a free trial of Paraxial.io today and mention Thinking Elixir when you schedule a demo for a special offer.</a></li></ul>