The beta for Programming Phoenix >= 1.4 is expected by the middle of May, 2018. The Ecto book should be out just before that. These are of course estimates, because writing books is nothing like a software project Be sure to follow @pragprog on twitter or sign up for our Wednesday newsletter so as not to miss anything.

And yes, upgrades within an edition are always free. And when you buy a beta book, you get all the later releases of that book for free. For upgrades to a new edition, it can vary book-per-book. Usually we try to make it either free or 60-80% off. It depends on how much work the author(s) have had to try, we want to be fair to them and them incredible amount of time and dedication it takes to put a book out.

Get it from Pragprog and you’ll probably get a free update (digital books only mind!)

Rogers' Bell Curve541×334 11.1 KB

Fun fact: You can’t exist in the innovators/early adopters phase of a product’s adoption lifecycle and expect to have the same level of tooling and comprehensive educational material coverage that is typical for products in their late majority/laggards stage.

To the point: 1.3 is still just a “release candidate” - “It’s done, when its done”. If you have an urgent need now, stick with the stable version (of the product or the book). If this is about “I can’t be bothered learning the old stuff” then figure it out from the existing documentation or be patient - and if Phoenix continues to be successful then even 1.3 isn’t the be-all and end-all anyway; it’s simply a milestone in its continual evolution.

Side-note: Everybody want’s to be on greenfield projects/products because there is no technical debt/legacy code to contend with. But if there is an opportunity to participate on an existing (brownfield) Phoenix project, you’ll need to know the “old way/stuff” anyway in order to be able to find the issues that need to be nudged (refactored) towards more up-to-date practices.