"In OTP, application denotes a component implementing some specific functionality, that can be started and stopped as a unit, and which can be re-used in other systems as well." OTP documentation
IMPORTANT Every Mix project is an OTP application, whether or not it is supervised.
That's what the configuration in the mix.exs file is all about. Apps have a name, a version, any dependencies that they might require and, importantly, a list of applications that need to be booted up to help this application do its job.
You can learn more about mix's OTP options by typing mix help compile.app at the command line.
Long before the age of microservices, OTP:
- encouraged isolated components
- allowed these components to run on separate hardware
- solved the microservice communication problem
Mix just makes these things a bit easier to manage through the use of umbrella apps.
So, by using mix and OTP, you get all of the benefits of microservices with none of the pain.
Create a new supervised project using mix new todo --sup
See the demo code from more info.