I started learning Erlang a few months ago and after spending a week with the online class at Future Learn [0] I can understand why some people say Erlang is more readable than Elixir.
I know if you're coming form Ruby world, Erlang almost feels second nature. However, for people coming from other languages, I recommend looking into Erlang as well. It's more expressive, IMHO.
>I know if you're coming form Ruby world, Erlang almost feels second nature.
I'll assume you meant "Elixir", and seriously I hope people will give up on this myth really soon. Yes, the syntax kind of look like Ruby, but the platform is nothing like it. I'm actually very scared for Elixir to see so many Ruby developers moving to it, thinking that it's just "fast Ruby". They may bring all their Ruby habits with them and defeat the point of using the Erlang VM.
If they just want "fast Ruby", then they should move to Crystal instead. Elixir as a language is a lot different than Ruby, in addition to the platform it runs on.
The syntax alone is not really sufficient to justify it, but Elixir's hygenic macros are well worth it and we benefit by having simpler and more elegant APIs and libraries.
I know if you're coming form Ruby world, Erlang almost feels second nature. However, for people coming from other languages, I recommend looking into Erlang as well. It's more expressive, IMHO.
[0] https://www.futurelearn.com/courses