Hello Folks,
I am a novice developer from India. Intending to learn Elixir and web apps (phoenix framework).
What are things that I MUST know ? and If there are some awesome-lists , it’d be of great use.
I hope this thread would serve as a good archive of broad concepts for job market.
As a really quick way of jumping into Elixir is to watch Alchemist Camp channel on youtube in conjunction with going through the official tutorial which is freaking on point.
I learned Elixir from the official docs and getting my hands dirty with a project at work. One tip I can give you is that don’t get overwhelmed when you see people talking about OTP. You can learn the language and solve problems with ut without getting to know much in that department and by the time you really need it, you will have all know how and motivation for it.
I don’t know what prior experience you have with programming but things might feel a little slow with all the pattern matching, pipes and new way of thinking- give it time and you’ll love it eventually.
If you can grab the book “Elixir in Action” that would be awesome, it is one of the most enjoyable programming books I’ve read. ElixirSchool is awesome too. But really the official docs alone could be a great friend.
I have some free time from September 14th, so if you want we can set up a pair programming session or two? You can even open a thread on your Elixir learning journey and post any questions you might feel and we can join in and learn together. I am sure someone had done it here and that was a pretty informative thread.
Congratulations for deciding to learn Elixir. It has been the most rewarding learning and using experience for me and I am sure for a lot like me. Just let me know if you need any assistance 
I’ll give a different tip: check out Exercism.io and do the Elixir track. Having some kind of little project to do really helps, you can inspect the test suite they supply so you learn testing (try to come up with more tests on your own), and best of all, you can get feedback from mentors.
+1 on Exercism.org (it moved from .io to .org with the latest update). Really nifty command line tool to help get and send exercises, but the website now offers editor too. Mentoring on the site is awesome.
Again +1 on Exercism.org.
As others said before, the official tutorial and the “Elixir in Action” book are really good ways to get started. Exercism.org then allows you to do exercises, submit them, and get feedback from real people (mentors) which will help you a lot with learning best practices and wrapping your head around the functional paradigm.
If I were you, I’d take a look at the official documentation, start with a toy project, maybe look into “Elixir in Action” if things don’t make sense, and then deepen my understanding through Exercism.org.
If you ever feel super stuck, shoot me a message! I’ve been writing Elixir for a living the past 5 years.
As a binge reader, I can encourage you to read the book series from PragProg.
I can recommend in order:
Programming Elixir <= 1.6
Programming Phoenix <= 1.4
After these two books, you’ll be ready to tackle some basic, medium tasks.
Programming Ecto, Designing Elixir Systems
with OTP and Testing Elixir should be the next steps IMHO.
Exercism.org and Codewars.com are also good resources to learn by solving problems too.
For quick help, usually I try to reach the Discord server or lookup for a similar topic on elixir-forum.
We’re lucky to have pragprog editing so much books about Elixir that’s insane.
I agree with what everyone else mentioned.
A lot of the recommendations are to start with the basics, build a strong foundation, and go from there, which is the best possible approach.
However, if you are struggling with motivation and would really be motivated by building some cool interactive UI things, you could play with LiveView a bit and then go back to building your foundational Elixir skills. Here is a very good LiveView course that starts free with has lots of value in the free portion.
A lot of the Elixir books are aimed at a more advanced audience. The Learn Functional Programming With Elixir book would be an easier first book.
Same offer as above, if you get stuck, please feel free to message me.
Once you are past the basics Concurrent Programming in Elixir is a good next option.
Also look at a grox.io subscription,
Can you please post the name of the author of the book you mentioned?
I am opting for https://exercism.org/ as of now. Because :
Also, I have a Pragmatic Studio’s Elixir and OTP Course. Will see that alongside.
Thanks for all the books ! Those are after these two!
It’s this book Concurrent Data Processing in Elixir: Fast, Resilient Applications with OTP, GenStage, Flow, and Broadway by Svilen Gospodinov
I didn’t know about exercism!
I signed up and it looks very interesting! Thanks!
CodeWars is really good with many levels of difficulty. Another one which is similar to Exercis and Codewars and has a feature of ‘Interview Practice’ is CodeSignal, they have an Elixir track : )
+1 on that platform
