Dave Thomas is celebrated in the Ruby community for having written the “Pickaxe”: The first english language book on Ruby and widely used as the beginners guide and reference to Ruby. Now, he brings us *Programming Elixir: Functional > Fun > Cuncurrent > Pragmatic > Fun*.

I found the book to be a delightful introduction to Elixir. It is not intended for those that already know how to program and want to learn about the Elixir language in particular. Thorough introduction to the semantics of the language, the functional aspects, recursion, pattern matching, data structures, protocols, Erlang’s OTP framework and even some of the meta-programming facilities. I found the examples to be very clear and the suggested exercises help the concepts sink in.

I recommend this book, along with Elixir’s own Getting Started Guide to anyone interested in learning Elixir. When such an experienced programmer as PragDave has his eye on a new language, I listen. Elixir is gaining a lot of momentum. This book is a great way to get on the band-wagon.