Great thread @yao!
As Robert mentioned (and as demonstrated by Bunny^^) Erlang has so many of the attributes that would make it appealing to such a crowd - particularly the almost insane power it affords you. However, the thing I think it is missing is a gateway that appeals to some of these more mainstream ‘crowds’, specifically one that makes using or getting into Erlang easier.
Elixir has done really well here with two main things, a familiar/easy (and much loved) Ruby type syntax, and a strong framework (Phoenix) that takes many of the best ideas of industry standard frameworks (like Rails) and adds even more to them. The syntax makes Elixir more accessible, and the frameworks makes it easier to get into the language - because it gives you a good viable reason to use it. Obviously this is simplification but you get the idea - it’s great having an awesome language, but it’s greater having an awesome language -and- making it easy to get into and use.
This is also one of the reasons why I think better BEAM interop would be awesome - Erlang (/all BEAM languages) could benefit from the strengths of each language, and this could lead to an explosion of potential users which would benefit all BEAM languages.
Btw, you might also like this:
(Warning: contains some swearing!)
I love that video, however for me it only really made sense after learning about the underlying benefits of Erlang/OTP… so we may need to do more to bridge that gap…