Welcome to GigaElixir Gazette, your 5-minute digest of Elixir ecosystem news that actually matters 👋.

At Gigalixir, (the only platform built specifically for Elixir/Phoenix apps), we’ve got a new feature.

New Feature: Activity Audit Tracing

Ever had someone on your team accidentally delete a database and wondered "wait, who did this?" Now we've got you covered. Gigalixir just shipped activity audit tracing. Now every action shows WHO made changes, not just what changed.

Check your activity logs with gigalixir apps:activity to see user attribution for all modifications.

Deploy now and unlock capabilities that other platforms simply can't provide.

. WEEKLY PICKS .

🐍 Most Teams Choose Between Elixir and Python - Smart Teams Use Both:

The game just changed. Pythonx embeds a Python interpreter directly into your Elixir application, giving you access to Python's massive ecosystem without leaving Elixir's fault-tolerant world. One developer built a real-time Reddit comment streamer using PRAW, showcasing pandas, scikit-learn integration.

This eliminates the false choice between Elixir's actor model and Python's rich libraries. While everyone else architects around language limitations, smart teams prototype with existing Python solutions. I/O-heavy operations unlock entirely new domains for Elixir applications.

Explore the integration

🧪 Most Developers Fight Logger Levels Wrong - This Macro Wins:

Here's the wall everyone hits: you need to test code paths that emit specific log levels, but your test environment filters them out. Your info logs get dropped because tests run at :warning level, making assertions fail and forcing awkward workarounds.

Smart teams use Jason Tokoph's log_level macro that wraps test blocks with proper lifecycle management. While everyone else duplicates brittle setup code, this demonstrates Elixir's metaprogramming superiority for eliminating development friction.

Implement this pattern

🚀 Why Experienced Developers Still Choose Elixir Over Everything:

A developer with 9 years of Elixir experience cuts through the hype to explain why Elixir remains the superior choice. Phoenix LiveView eliminates frontend complexity, OTP delivers battle-tested reliability, and Elixir expands into machine learning with Nx/Axon.

The job market reality: fewer positions than JavaScript, but higher quality roles building sophisticated systems. Companies choose Elixir for genuine scalability and fault tolerance, translating to premium compensation reflecting specialized expertise.

Position yourself strategically

🔐 Enterprise Authorization Finally Gets Serious - Permit's Roadmap Proves It:

The Permit team released their roadmap showing enterprise features that most teams cobble together from multiple libraries. Phoenix Scopes integration, visual policy playground like Supabase's RLS builder, static analysis for rule validation. Most intriguing: PostgreSQL RLS integration for database-level authorization.

This proves Elixir's enterprise readiness. While other teams patch together authorization solutions, Permit builds comprehensive access control spanning controllers, LiveView, GraphQL, and database security.

Plan your authorization

. PRO TIPS .

Stop Fighting Logger Levels in Tests - This Macro Eliminates the Pain

Here's the wall every developer hits: you need to test code paths that emit specific log levels, but your test environment filters them out. Your info logs get dropped because tests run at :warning level, making assertions fail and forcing awkward workarounds that everyone accepts as "just how testing works."

Everyone writes brittle test setup code that manually remembers to restore log levels, or worse, accepts broken assertions. Smart teams use Jason Tokoph's simple macro that wraps test blocks with proper lifecycle management. The log_level macro creates a describe block that captures the original level, sets the temporary level, and restores it via on_exit callback.

This proves Elixir's metaprogramming superiority for eliminating development friction. Instead of duplicating setup code across tests or accepting broken assertions, you get clean syntax that handles the lifecycle automatically. The macro requires a describe block, but smart teams accept this limitation to eliminate the manual log level management that everyone else inevitably forgets.

Most teams miss this insight: macros excel at eliminating repetitive test setup, not just complex domain logic. Use this pattern for any test configuration that needs careful lifecycle management.

Technique from Jason Tokoph's testing guide

Remember, for testing infrastructure:

1. Capture original state before changing configuration

2. Use on_exit callbacks for reliable cleanup regardless of test outcome

3. Wrap repetitive patterns in macros to eliminate manual setup duplication

4. Accept describe block limitations when the ergonomic benefits are worth it

. TIRED OF DEVOPS HEADACHES? .

Deploy your next Elixir app hassle-free with Gigalixir and focus more on coding, less on ops.

We're specifically designed to support all the features that make Elixir special, so you can keep building amazing things without becoming a DevOps expert.

See you next week,

Michael

P.S. Forward this to a friend who loves Elixir as much as you do 💜