Elixir has some great short forms of functions:
This is the identity function:
& &1
You can use this to turn a list into a map of counts:
~w[a b c]a |> Map.new(&{&1, 0})
The if statement is an expression and will return nil for the else clause
a = if foo == "hello", do: "yes", else: nil end
There is also an unless that is the reverse of if
