Looking to get started with FP and Elixir coming mainly from an OOP Rails and PHP background.
My first question is, whats the best course that will give me a good grounding in the fundamentals of Elixir?
Secondly, I hear great things about Dave Thomas’s Programming Elixir book and his video course. Are these two resources distinctly different, i.e. if I get one over the other, will I be missing out? And if just choosing one, which would you recommend - the book or course?
Just my personal preference but I think these might be a good mix:
Elixir for Programmers (PragDave) (Currently on offer for $30!) - if you like instruction via video - this one should give you a pretty good tour. Whether or not video courses can be as “in depth” as books is a separate issue. But the content of the course is different from Programming Elixir 1.6 - though there will be some overlap in terms of the technologies covered.
Elixir In Action (Manning) 2nd Edition - This one has a slight edge for me over Programming Elixir 1.6 simply because it seems focused on working effectively with the BEAM (the virtual machine that Elixir/Erlang run on) - but ultimately that’s likely personal preference. Though lots of people (including myself) have used both books (to get 35% off the ebook, use code ‘elixirforum18’).
I just answered a similar thread here and recommend the same:
With regards to your question:
They complement each other very well - the book teaches you the language, the video course shows you how to apply it …but not in a ‘standard’ way, in Dave’s way of approaching software development after decades of experience. Highly recommended
