Elixir exploration of the Erlang brod library

An Elixir project to explore the Erlang library brod by porting it to Elixir. It resides in the github repo brod_mimic.

This project was created for a couple of reasons.

• The brod library is the most popular means in Elixir to interface with Kafka.
• Elixir developers generally lack knowledge on how to read the Erlang code. The brod code is complex and the end result is that Elixir developers may try and use the library as a black-box and that falls apart if problems occur that require some knowledge of how the library is talking to Kafka.
• I figured having an Elixir implementation would allow Elixir developers to examine this code and then have a clearer understanding of how brod works. To make this a reality I needed to:
  • convert the brod code file by file (so that a developer looking at the code could align what is in this library with the brod code). So, for example, in the brod library there is a src/brod_consumers_sup.erl file. In this library there is a lib/brod_mimic/consumers_sup.ex file.
  • modify doc so that the information aligns with usage from Elixir (the brod documentation is written from an Erlang perspective)
  • add documentation that clarifies some of the more complicated aspects of the code

Developers should not use this library in lieu of brod. It’s not nearly production ready and the brod library has been used for years by all sorts of companies. This project is meant to be educational.