EMx 023: “Bubblescript – Beyond the DSL” with Arjan Scherpenisse

Panel: - https://github.com/brainlid- Eric Berry Special Guest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scherpenisse In this episode of Elixir Mix, the panel talks with https://www.linkedin.com/in/scherpenisse who is the technical co-founder at https://www.botsquad.com Arjan lives in the Amsterdam area of the Netherlands. Also, he is currently working with Miracle Things. Check out today’s episode where the panel and Arjan talk about his https://www.botsquad.com/2018/04/14/beyond-the-dsl/ and his latest projects. Show Topics: 0:50 – Hello! 1:23 – Is that right – got to drink Heineken in Amsterdam? 1:30 – Arjan: It’s the Bud Light version here in Amsterdam. 1:47 – Panelist: I feel pretty stupid now. 1:58 – Eric: I actually just visited Amsterdam to visit a good friend. The canals were gorgeous! 2:25 – Arjan: I actually worked 7 years in the city center and I cycled to work over the tiny bridges. Now I live outside of Amsterdam. 2:47 – Panelist: You have this article on Bubblescript, which is a creation of yours. Can you tell what it is? 3:08 – Arjan: I have been a software developer for 8 years. I have been using Elixir more in the past 2 years. So at some point an agency asked if I could build something for their museum. I thought let’s do it, because that’s a nice project! I got to work with three historical figures, which has their own stories. 4:45 – Is it spoken? 4:51 – Arjan: Just text. It was really meant for a young audience. The creators wrote stories about these figures. Get the younger generation engaged. I thought, well, how could I build something like this? I don’t want to hardcode it because I am the one maintaining it and I don’t want to be a SMS person. I thought, I wanted them to maintain it, but CMS is limited. Then I thought, I will give them a Jason file – each instruction on one line. Those file formats are for... Then I thought why couldn’t I use Elixir...? I just wrote something that looped out and spit-out all of these messages through messenger with a timer. Then I made it very simple through UI. Then it would tell you that line the error is. Then in the background you are checking to see if your syntax is correct or broken. Then there is a run button on the side. That’s how it started. It was a lot of work for one project. I found the idea really fascinating, and then last year I showed them this to my friend. He, too, was in Elixir and loved the idea and so we started a company. 8:47 – Panelist: That’s where https://www.botsquad.com came from? One of the questions I had been: Is it done through macros? 9:01 – Arjan: Yes, but there is... I don’t compile it to an Elixir code; I use it as a functional thing. “Hey! Give me the next message...” If that makes sense? 9:59 – Panelist: I see that you have an example through the article. If something is invalid then you can see that it’s on “line 2.” Never used string to coder – I think that’s a great application to that. 10:26 – Arjan: Yep! String to coder. 11:09 – Your path to Elixir went through Erlang first right (2009)? 11:22 – Arjan: Maybe earlier? I was working through an agency back then, and they were building a platform for projects. One of the co-founders left and he started to work (for a year) and worked on this language called Erlang. That was back in 2008/2009. He later went onto create... He was working on that and he convinced me to use Erlang. I like Erlang because it’s a logical language. 13:06 – What was the path to Elixir? Why would you use Erlang? 13:21 – Arjan: Good question. I haven’t left Erlang totally, yet. It was due...