Have you seen Elixir list comprehensions? iex> for n <- 1..4, do: n*n [1, 4, 9, 16] Or for your example: iex> l = 1..3 # equivalent to [1,2,3] iex> E

Have you seen Elixir list comprehensions? iex> for n <- 1..4, do: n*n [1, 4, 9, 16] Or for your example: iex> l = 1..3 # equivalent to [1,2,3] iex> Enum.reduce(l, fn item, acc -> acc + item end) # or iex> Enum.reduce(l, &(&1+&2) # or the built in iex> Enum.sum(l) # all return: 6 https://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/comprehensions.html https://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/comprehensions.html https://hexdocs.pm/elixir/1.12/Enum.html#reduce/2 https://hexdocs.pm/elixir/1.12/Enum.html#reduce/2 https://hexdocs.pm/elixir/1.12/Enum.html#sum/1 https://hexdocs.pm/elixir/1.12/Enum.html#sum/1 None of which take away from your point though: it's definitely a different mental model than you use for Python/Go/Javascript.