num_pages: 250
description: Elixir is a smooth, powerful, and small language; an excellent place for newcomers to learn about functional programming. If you're new to Elixir, its functional style can seem difficult, but with help from this hands-on introduction, you'll scale the learning curve and discover how enjoyable, powerful, and fun this language can be. Elixir combines the robust functional programming of Erlang with an approach that looks more like Ruby and reaches toward metaprogramming with powerful macro features.Authors Simon St. Laurent and J. David Eisenberg show you how to write simple Elixir programs by teaching you one skill at a time. You’ll learn about pattern matching, recursion, message passing, process-oriented programming, and establishing pathways for data rather than telling it where to go. By the end of your journey, you’ll understand why Elixir is ideal for concurrency and resilience.* Get comfortable with IEx, Elixir's command line interface* Become familiar with Elixir’s basic structures by working with numbers* Discover atoms, pattern matching, and guards: the foundations of your program structure* Delve into the heart of Elixir processing with recursion, strings, lists, and higher-order functions* Create processes, send messages among them, and apply pattern matching to incoming messages* Store and manipulate structured data with Erlang Term * Storage (ETS) and the Mnesia database* Build resilient applications with the Open Telecom Platform (OTP)* Define macros with Elixir's meta-programming tools.
language: English
title: Introducing Elixir: Getting Started in Functional Programming
publisher: O'Reilly Media