Adopting Elixir

Tracing

When it comes to debugging, Elixir developers have two main options: use the debugger GUI^[134] that ships with Erlang or the new IEx.break!^[135] Elixir tools. Debuggers let you stop the execution of one or more processes and inspect their environment, but debugging is clearly not a good match for a production system. If you interrupt an important process in your application while debugging, you could start to accumulate requests, leading to timeouts or even restarts. In the end, your email inbox may begin to rapidly fill.

Because the risks of interacting with live systems and security concerns are acute, many companies simply do not give developers access to production nodes except under special circumstances. Even if you work at one ...