Thinking Elixir Podcast 279: Hot Code Upgrades and Hotter AI Takes
Nov 18, 2025
Discover how FlyDeploy enables zero-downtime hot code upgrades for Elixir applications. Unpack the significance of hot code upgrades for seamless connections. Explore the latest Elixir gRPC update featuring interactive Livebook documentation. Hear about ErrorTracker's enhancements and the innovative exterm_ai terminal with AI assistance. Delve into case studies on real-time air quality monitoring using Elixir and insights from GitHub's 2025 Octoverse report revealing TypeScript's rise. Plus, learn about an AI-driven workflow that compresses extensive tasks into days!
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Zero-Downtime Hot Code Upgrades
- FlyDeploy enables zero-downtime hot code upgrades by swapping code and migrating in-memory state without restarting the app.
- This leverages BEAM's code change callbacks to perform in-memory state migrations for seamless upgrades.
When To Use FlyDeploy
- Use FlyDeploy for containerized environments when changes are limited to top-level OTP modules you fully control.
- Avoid it for Elixir version bumps, adding new OTP apps, or complex multi-step upgrade paths that need ordered module upgrades.
Interactive gRPC Livebook Docs
- The Elixir gRPC library added interactive Livebook docs plus new streaming features and map_error for smarter error handling.
- Interactive docs let you learn and experiment with gRPC directly inside Livebook.