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Which book to read?
Background
Hello all! So after my controversial introduction with Learning Elixir, frst impressions ( plz don't kill me ! ) - I saw a ton of recommendations for learning Elixir. The challenge however is that I don’t have time to read them all - that would take me several months or even years.
So I need to start somewhere. After checking the official page:
I concluded I am interested in Videos / Books.
What book should I get?
So, I am not completely new to FP. I know what lambdas and recursion are and I am quite familiar with the basic concepts of FP.
What I don’t know however, is how to do FP Elixir style. I am looking for a book or video that:
- Teaches me the basics of Elixir and how to think in Elixir
- Preferably has no association with frameworks ( yet, I will invest into Phoenix and OTP later as I rather have the basics of the Elixir mindset well cemented for now )
- Has exercises ( I am using Exercism.io but I could use something with more guidance )
- Preferably cheap ( I have seen some books recommended by the Erlang community with a woping 120€ price. I can’t afford anything near that. )
- Preferable with immediate availability. I am a sucker for physical copies but right now I can’t wait a week for a book to get to me. A PDF file would be just fine.
I have checked online courses in Udemy and Pluralsight, but I am reluctant into buying them because I am not really sure if they are worth it.
Summarize
So, given my background, what I am looking for and the resources the community knows, which ones would you recommend ?
I tried to check this one out:
https://pragprog.com/book/cdc-elixir/learn-functional-programming-with-elixir
But I am not really new to FP so I am not sure if this is a good purchase for me.
Most Liked
kokolegorille
I share opinion for books with other posters… but for me, one turning point was
https://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/ErlangMasterClasses/
After that, I went from why? to of course, it makes sense.
And it’s free.
datadrover
Based on this and your previous post, I would recommend Elixir in Action. There is a forum discount code. From where you are starting, this book provides an excellent exposition of Elixir and how the language fits into the Erlang ecosystem.
peerreynders
Given all the parameters I firmly point you in the direction of Elixir in Action 2e. It moves at a brisk pace while treating it as a BEAM language (rather than as a FP Ruby knockoff), gets into process thinking while sprinkling in a little bit of OTP.
Here are the details with regards to the forum discount.
But I am not really new to FP so I am not sure if this is a good purchase for me.
Get through EiA2e first and continue with exercism. If after finishing the book and watching the Erlang master classes exercism still gives you trouble then it is likely a good purchase.
If you need a quick Erlang primer check out chapter 2 of Designing for Scalability with Erlang/OTP in the free sample on play.google.com - if there are any other gaps fill them in with the appropriate sections of Learn You Some Erlang.
- Simon Thompson is one of the key people (pulling in people like Francesco Cesarini, Joe Armstrong, etc.) behind the University of Kent content - he teaches Haskell and Erlang and is the Author of Haskell: the Craft of Functional Programming and coauthor of Erlang Programming. For my overview of the Universty of Kent MOOCs see (Part 1) and (Part 2).
For some other meandering thoughts on reading order see: When learning, what order of books did you start with?
david_ex
For learning “just” Elixir, I would recommend the following books:
- https://pragprog.com/book/elixir16/programming-elixir-1-6
- https://www.manning.com/books/elixir-in-action-second-edition
The prag prog book is more of a “step by step” book. Elixir in action progresses faster (doesn’t spend as much time exploring more basic aspects). Both are good and having both won’t necessarily lead to a lot of duplication. Note I have only read the 1st version of Elixir in action: I learned a lot, but at this stage it’s getting quite dated (i.e. buy the 2nd edition, not the 1st).
Another excellent (free!) resource is learnyousomeerlang.com. Although it’s about Erlang, it spends a lot of time covering “thinking in OTP” etc. which transfers nearly directly into Elixir.
For video-based learning, there’s
- https://codestool.coding-gnome.com/courses/elixir-for-programmers
- https://pragmaticstudio.com/elixir
Based on your experience and requests, I would recommend the first one as its style is closer to what you’re looking for.
Being new to Elixir myself, I’ve spent some time to write a series on creating a process pool manager in Elixir (as well as some small coding patterns in Elixir). You might find them helpful: http://davidsulc.com/blog/category/elixir/
peerreynders
Right now at www.springer.com use code SCW18E or CYBERWEEK18
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