ggwc82
New to FP, best course and difference between Dave Thomas's book and course
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?
Thanks in advance!
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peerreynders
Just my personal preference but I think these might be a good mix:
- Elixir for Programmers (PragDave) - 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’).
- Learn Functional Programming with Elixir (Pragprog) - if any additional help is needed with the “functional way of doing things” (to get 35% off the ebook, use code ‘ElixirForum’).
AstonJ
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 
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