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://hexdocs.pm/elixir/1.12/Enum.html#reduce/2 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.