+1. This thread, the thread about documentation, and the thread about turning off Sprites, when taken together, thoroughly illustrate why I'm not currently a Fly user.
I don't have an opinion on the matter, but it's pretty popular. According to [1], Phoenix "was used extensively over the past year" by 2.4% of responders.
I really appreciate his iconoclasty right now, but every time I engage with his ideas I come away feeling short changed. I’m always like “there is no such thing as outside the training data”. What’s inside and what’s outside the training data is at least as ill-defined as “what is AGI”.
The answer to (2) is, IMO, "to make computing cheaper". It's interesting to me that this is not the obvious, default answer (it may not be the most actionable answer but IMO it should at least be noted as a way to frame discussions). I think we're at the tail end of computing's artisanal, pre-industrial era where researchers and programmers alike have this latent, tacit view of computing as a kind of arcana.
I'm a full-stack developer with wide-ranging technical experience and strong general problem solving skills. Most recently I co-founded a startup, worked on it for a few years, and then took some time off to recharge, be with my family, and work on hobby projects. I'm most interested in, and in my opinion best suited for, the kind of fast-paced small-team environment you typically find in early-stage startups.