I presume that 1.4 will include webpack 4, so any references to Brunch (if there are any) will have to be updated as well (in the original book, Brunch was discussed in passing during the development installation and then primarily in a four page “Adding JavaScript” section; otherwise sporadically whenever there was cause discuss features offered by socket.js or something relating to the phoenix.js and phoenix_html.js dependencies).
Also note that the book indicates a skill level of 4 out of 6 (6 being expert) so some prerequisite knowledge is desirable.
There’s lots for them to get their teeth into before that book imo. I’ve read/done the following and highly recommend the same before learning Phoenix:
Ah nice! Did you know that Dave is coming out with another course ‘soon’? I can’t wait for it
In the meantime I have just started reading Learn Functional Programming with Elixir (Pragprog) and am loving it so far - from what I’ve read so far (and I’m not sure how much experience with functional programming your team has, but) it seems to be particularly good at introducing functional concepts
Don’t forget you can use the forum discount to get 35% off PragProg and Manning books
I’m sure that everybody is doing their best to get the beta out - but given that the book is only one of many of their responsibilities it may take a little more time to get out.
And as such I would expect the “print book” publishing date of 2018-06-10 to be tentative at this point (hence the phrasing “on or about”).
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.
$ curl https://github.com/phoenixframework/archives/raw/master/1.4-dev/phx_new.ez
<html><body>You are being <a href="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/phoenixframework/archives/master/1.4-dev/phx_new.ez">redirected</a>.</body></html>
$