I don't really see why this is the case. Both Elixir and Gleam are functional languages with immutable data.
The only major difference between them is the typing and the syntax I'd say.
The only major difference between them is the typing and the syntax I'd say.
If I were to try to make the argument for you, I'd point to some of Elixir's more powerful abstractions like protocols and macros as a reason Elixir might be harder for JS devs. In reality, though, I found it very straightforward to learn as a JS dev, and that was back in 2016 when the documentation was much worse.