Elixir Skills by Level

A Bunch of Books on Elixir

Fundamentals

1. Data Types
   • Scalars
     • Integers
     • Floats
     • Strings (charlist vs binaries)
     • Atoms
     • Booleans
     • Modules & Functions
     • Pids
       • Local
       • Remote
     • Functions
       • Anonymous Functions
       • Referencing Named Functions
   • Composite
     • Types
       • Tuples
       • Lists
       • Keyword Lists
       • Maps
       • Structs
       • Erlang Proplists
       • Elixir Keyword Lists
     • Understand differences between these types
       • Ordered vs Unordered
       • Cost of Updates
         • Prepend (for ordered types)
         • Append (for ordered types)
         • Arbitrary Insertion
         • Updating a Particular Element
       • Cost of Reads
         • Random Access
         • Sequential Access
2. Pattern Matching
   • Match Operator (= - Not Assignment!)
   • Function Head
     • In Named Functions
     • In Anonymous Functions
   • Case
   • Cond
   • With
   • Guards
   • Destructuring Data
     • Tuples
     • Lists
     • Maps
     • Structs
     • Especially Nested Structures
3. Processes
   • Create From Anonymous Function
   • Create from Named Function
   • Send Message to Process
   • Receive Message From Another Process
   • Receive Message From Another Process With Timeout
   • Exits
   • Links
   • Monitors
     • Setting a Monitor
     • Removing a Monitor
   • Trapping Exits
4. Code Organization Techniques
   • alias
   • import
   • require
   • use

Beginner (Learning The Ecosystem)

• Type & Function Specs
• Using Observer
• STDLIB & Data Structures
  • Essential
    • Protocols
    • Enum
    • Stream
    • Elixir Sets
  • Good to Have
    • Erlang Sets
    • Erlang Queues
    • Erlang TreeSets
    • Erlang Ordered Sets
    • Erlang Balanced Trees
    • Erlang Directed Graphs
    • Erlang Records
• Behaviours
• Timers
  • Note the helper functions for converting to milliseconds
• ExDoc
  • Generate documentation for your own projects
• gen_tcp
  • Facilities for interacting with raw TCP sockets (both server and client side)
• gen_udp
  • Like gen_tcp, but for UDP
• OTP Design Principles
  • GenServer
    • Client-side code vs "GenServer"-side code
    • Memorize all the Callbacks
    • Structuring Your Module
    • Registering the GenServer
      • Locally
      • In an Elixir Registry
      • Globally across a cluster
  • Supervisor
    • Supervision Strategies
      • :one_for_one
      • :one_for_all
      • :rest_for_one
      • :simple_one_for_one
      • DynamicSupervisor
    • Shutdown Values
      • :brutal_kill
      • :infinity
      • timeout
    • Restart Values
      • :permanent
      • :temporary
      • :transient
    • Child Specs
  • Application
  • Task
  • Agent
  • Generic State Machines
• Logger
• Ecosystem
  • Ecto
    • Data Validation Library
    • Also useful as an ORM
  • Plug
  • Phoenix
  • HTTPoison
  • JSON Libs
    • Poison - Pure Elixir
    • Jason - Pure Elixir
    • Jiffy - Drops to C (fastest in the west)

Intermediate (More Advanced Use of STDLIBs and Ecosystem)

• Dialyzer
• Dialyxir - A wrapper for including Dialyzer in mix projects
• ETS - In-memory data store for arbitrary erlang/elixir data structures
• DETS - Disk-based data store for arbitrary erlang/elixir data structures
• Efficiency Guide User's Guide
• Built-In OS Monitoring Utilities
• Process Pooling
  • Process Groups
  • Poolboy
• RPC
• GenStage
• Flow

Advanced

• Erlang in Anger
  • Great ebook on dealing with misbehaving Erlang/Elixir stuff
• Clustering
• Mnesia
  • A database built on ETS and DETS with transactions and other good features.
  • Definitely not an RDBMS. Learn the tradeoffs it makes before using (as with any database)
• Macros & Metaprogramming