Hey guys! I would like to take this opportunity to say that I am in awe of how awesome and supportive the Elixir community is.
I am fairly new to programming and I have decided to start learning Elixir as my first language using the book Joy of Elixir.
I wonder if there are more books like that so that I could use them in my journey of learning Elixir,
and I would also appreciate any tip for learning in general!
Thanks again and I hope you all have an amazing day
Of course, things like Ecto and Phoenix are universes in themselves but they are very approachable and the community here is supportive and helps people get into them as well.
The book Elixir in Action was very helpful to me when I was learning Elixir. The Pragmatic Studio is also great for video tutorials + sample projects.
And donât underestimate the HexDocs for Elixir, Ecto, Phoenix, LiveView, and any other libraries you might be using. Youâll often find full tutorials for common use cases right there in the docs.
Welcome @light . You say youâre âfairly new to programmingâ, so (depending on how new exactly) itâs worth being aware that Elixir is (Iâm pretty sure) most often picked up by people with a fair bit of experience in other languages. This isnât because itâs notably difficult (itâs really not!), but just a matter of its not being as well known as more common âbeginnerâ languages like python and javascript (the latter, by the way, is a much more difficult language to learn well than Elixir).
I point this out just so youâre aware that many of the resources available, and that people may point you to, could seem to be pitched above your level. If thatâs so, move on to something else, or (if youâre someone willing to head-butt your way through more difficult material), keep asking questions. Iâm also new (to Elixir, not to programming), but from what Iâve seen the Elixir community is largely kind & helpful.
To any others reading this - are you aware of any Elixir resources beyond Joy of Elixir pitched at newish programmers?
Welcome!
The greatest tip for learning anything in programming and computers is to always build stuff and tinker around, does not matter how big or small, just do it!
If this is really your first language, you should not read âElixir in Actionâ and âDesigning Elixir Systemsâ yet, the last book I do not know.
Be aware that you are learning a functional language, I do not know of anyone that picked a functional language as their first language, but I think that could be a really good thing. I regret that it took me decades to really use a functional language.
The main difference to ânormalâ languages is, that you can not mutate data at will anywhere in memory. You can only transform data incoming to a function and return sth different. With this you obviously have less power, but you get the benefit of easier to understand and easier to test code (you can read a line of code, knowing that nothing magic happens somewhere else).
But: if you search for solutions to problems (on stackoverflow eg) you will most of the time find solutions that use mutable data. You canât apply them directly in Elixir.
Hi Sebb,
As far as I have read the last book is aimed towards juniors-intermediate levels so it seems like an okay resource to study from as well, on top of my Joy of Elixir copy and other sites that people had mentioned here
I was told by a few that because I was not exposed to any OOP principals and languages in general it may be a benefit for me to wrap my head around FP faster.
Also, if you are referring by âcan not mutate data at willâ to the immutability part of Elixir then I was already sort of exposed to that, however, I must say that it seems to have itâs use cases.