AstonJ

Programming Phoenix (Pragprog)

by Chris McCord, Bruce Tate and José Valim

Don’t accept the compromise between fast and beautiful: you can have it all. Phoenix creator Chris McCord, Elixir creator José Valim, and award-winning author Bruce Tate walk you through building an application that’s fast and reliable. At every step, you’ll learn from the Phoenix creators not just what to do, but why. Packed with insider insights and completely updated for Phoenix 1.4, this definitive guide will be your constant companion in your journey from Phoenix novice to expert, as you build the next generation of web applications.

Phoenix is the long-awaited web framework based on Elixir, the highly concurrent language that combines a beautiful syntax with rich metaprogramming. The best way to learn Phoenix is to code, and you’ll get to attack some interesting problems. Start working with controllers, views, and templates within the first few pages. Build an in-memory context, and then back it with an Ecto database layer, complete with changesets and constraints that keep readers informed and your database integrity intact. Craft your own interactive application based on the channels API for the real-time applications that this ecosystem made famous. Write your own authentication plugs, and use the OTP layer for supervised services. Organize code with modular umbrella projects.

This edition is fully updated for Phoenix 1.4, with a new chapter on using Channel Presence to find out who’s connected, even on a distributed application. Use the new generators and the new ExUnit features to organize tests and make Ecto tests concurrent.

This is a book by developers and for developers, and we know how to help you ramp up quickly. Any book can tell you what to do. When you’ve finished this one, you’ll also know why to do it.

Don’t forget you can get 35% off the ebook using the code ‘devtalk.com’

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For those looking for an update to this book, please see this post.

68 comments

/phoenix #book-programming-phoenix #pragprog

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2024-09-22 15:32:53 UTC

First Post!

AstonJ

Does anyone know if the only major difference between the current version of the book and Phoenix 1.3 is Contexts?

If so I think I am going to start on this book next

Also for those of you who have read it, how long did it take you to read? What did you think of it?

Post #1

Most Liked

AstonJ

I’ve just started reading this but wanted to quickly say that the preface and opening chapter (everything up to the beginning of ‘Part 1’) is not only one of the best openings of any book I’ve read, but also does one of the best jobs to sell the idea of a piece of technology - ever!!

I was going to suggest PragProg consider making it a free download - because I reckon it will do a phenomenal job of helping drive adoption of Elixir and Phoenix …which in turn will mean significantly more potential customers/readers - so a win win for everyone but guess what? It’s already available as a free download!! (Get the preface here and the introductory chapter here.)

Well done Chris, José, Bruce, Jacquelyn, PragProg and anyone else who made that chapter what it is whenever anyone now asks “Why Elixir?” I’ll definitely be including this resource and I can’t wait to read to the rest of the book!

Post #17

chrismccord

Creator of Phoenix

LiveView definitely won’t make it into the book given we are shipping the final three chapters and sending it off to production hopefully before end of year, which will be prior to a LiveView 1.0 for sure. Fortunately though, we have a great doc system with elixir and hexdocs so there will be plenty of docs/guides as we get underway.

Post #25

chrismccord

Creator of Phoenix

Targeting EOY for the next edition release

Post #5

Last Post!

AstonJ

I wouldn’t say it’s deprecated, but as José mentioned it is now several years old and targets Phoenix 1.4 - so if you want a book that covers more recent versions of Phoenix with all its latest goodies, such as LiveView (which most people probably will) then Programming Phoenix LiveView includes more of that recent stuff… until perhaps we see the next edition of Programming Phoenix.

PP 1.4 is also still worth getting if the topics it covers interest you. Personally, while I did not get around to finishing the book I really liked it - it basically shows you how to create a web framework, does an amazing job at selling Phoenix and includes loads of other interesting info too - such as about timing attacks! But despite all this, as you pointed out, most people coming to Phoenix will want a book that is more up-to-date, and right now, that’s Programming Phoenix LiveView (PragProg).

Post #70