Do you have any other programming experience?

If so why not read Programming Elixir 1.3 up to the end of chapter 14 (the language bits) then switch to Elixir in Action which will help reinforce what you’ve learnt but also give you a great insight into concurrency and OTP, and then back to the rest of PE when you’ve finished EIA. After that, go on to Programming Phoenix and any other books that interest you.

This is currently my own plan of action - the great thing about mixing things up is you get a different perspective from different authors and I am finding PE and EIA complement each other very well (they cover a lot of the same ground which helps reinforce what you’re learning - saves you having to make notes).

Generally Pragprog is known to keep their books as up-to-date as possible. Programming Elixir has gone from that, to PE 1.2 to the current version of PE 1.3. Programming Phoenix is also in the process of being updated

I’d like to put my vote towards this approach. Some novices will probably ask do I really need both?

There are people who personally prefer either and that’s OK. Dave Thomas’ perspective is important for adopting Elixir in the first place, Saša Jurić’s is important because of his Erlang background.

Programming Elixir is filled with the enthusiasm of somebody who’s “finally seen the way” while being careful to smooth over the sometimes frustrating transition from the imperative/OO world; meanwhile Elixir in Action benefits from the perspective of extensive experience with the Erlang ecosystem, guiding the reader to using Elixir towards optimal benefit.

I found learnelixir.tv to be an excellent companion course to Programming Elixir. I’m halfway through both and both share a similiar content structure, watching the short videos has proven to make the chapter easier to digest to me.

This actually sounds like a great idea. Thanks for the tip!