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Mastering the Art of Programming in Elixir

Gain insights into Elixir's functional programming, explore immutable states, and discover Erlang tools and OTP servers through extensive code practice to strengthen your programming skills.

Beginner

144 Lessons

72h 10min

Certificate of Completion

Gain insights into Elixir's functional programming, explore immutable states, and discover Erlang tools and OTP servers through extensive code practice to strengthen your programming skills.

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This course includes

134 Playgrounds

28 Quizzes

Course Overview

What You'll Learn

Course Content

Apply Your Skills

Course Overview

Elixir is a pragmatic approach to functional programming with an immutable state. It is built above Erlang so it has access to all Erlang packages, modules, and tools. In this course, you’ll learn everything you need to know to start working with Elixir, including processing the collections, using multiple tools, and OTP servers. Programmers learn by writing code, and that’s exactly how this course will work. You'll practice a lot of coding examples that will help you to have a strong grip on Elixir.

Elixir is a pragmatic approach to functional programming with an immutable state. It is built above Erlang so it has access to a...Show More

What You'll Learn

Understand the basic concepts of programming in Elixir.

Learn about OTP servers and applications.

Get hands-on experience with multiple processes.

Learn how to use protocols in polymorphic functions.

Understand the basic concepts of programming in Elixir.

Course Content

Getting Started

4 Lessons

Get familiar with Elixir's advantages, data transformation, and running sessions in IEx.

Why You Should Take This Course

Transforming the Data

Running Elixir

Quiz Yourself: Introduction to Elixir

Pattern Matching

3 Lessons

Unpack the core of Elixir's match operator and lists pattern matching.

Assignments with the Match Operator

Lists

Quiz Yourself: Pattern Matching

Immutability

3 Lessons

Explore immutability in Elixir for reliable, efficient concurrent programming with immutable data.

Immutable Data

Performance Implications of Immutability

Quiz Yourself: Immutability

Elixir Basics

5 Lessons

Break down complex ideas of data types, operators, scope, and the with expression in Elixir.

Quiz Yourself: Elixir Basics

Anonymous Functions

5 Lessons

Map out the steps for working with Elixir's anonymous functions, including passing and returning functions.

Simple Functions

Returning a Function

Passing Functions as Arguments

Exercise: Join Two Strings

Solution Review: Join Two Strings

Modules and Named Functions

7 Lessons

Focus on Elixir modules, named functions, pattern matching, guard clauses, default parameters, private functions, and namespaces.

Compiling a Module

Function Calls and Pattern Matching

Quiz Yourself: Modules and Named Functions

Lists and Recursion

5 Lessons

Master the steps to utilize Elixir's recursive lists, create map and reduce functions, and handle complex patterns.

Heads and Tails

Creating a Map Function

Reducing a List to a Single Value

More Complex List Patterns

Quiz Yourself: List and Recursion

Maps, Keyword Lists, Sets, and Structs

7 Lessons

Learn how to use Elixir’s maps, keyword lists, structs, nested dictionaries, and sets effectively.

How to Choose Between Maps, Structs, and Keyword Lists

Keyword Lists and Maps

Pattern Matching and Updating Maps

Structs

Nested Dictionary Structures

Sets

Quiz Yourself: Maps, Keyword Lists, Sets, and Structs

Processing Collections: Enum and Stream

6 Lessons

Unpack the core of Elixir's Enum, Streams, custom streams, Collectable protocol, and comprehensions.

Enum: Processing Collections

Streams: Lazy Enumerables

Creating Our Own Streams

The Collectable Protocol

Comprehensions

Quiz Yourself: Processing Collections: Enum and Stream

10.

Strings and Binaries

6 Lessons

Examine string handling, binary manipulation, and pattern matching techniques in Elixir.

String Literals

Strings and Character Lists

Binaries

Double-quoted Strings Are Binaries

Binaries and Pattern Matching

Quiz Yourself: Strings and Binaries

11.

Control Flow

5 Lessons

Break down the steps to control flow in Elixir using `if`, `cond`, `case`, and exceptions.

Use of the if and unless Keywords

Use of the cond Keyword

Use of the case Keyword

Exceptions

Quiz Yourself: Control Flow

12.

Organizing a Project

13 Lessons

Organize Elixir projects, manage dependencies, test, transform data, and create CLIs and documentation.

Fetch Issues from GitHub

Step 1: Use Mix to Create Our New Project

Write Some Basic Tests

Refactor: Big Function Alert

Transformation: Fetch from GitHub

Step 2: Use Libraries

Transformation: Convert Response

Transformation: Sort Data

Transformation: Format the Table

Step 3: Make a Command-Line Executable

Step 4: Add Some Logging

Step 5: Create Project Documentation

Quiz Yourself: Organizing a Project.

13.

Tooling

6 Lessons

Follow the process of utilizing Elixir tools for debugging, testing, dependencies, monitoring, and code formatting.

Source-Code Formatting

Quiz Yourself: Tooling

14.

Working with Multiple Processes

7 Lessons

Build on efficient concurrent programming, low-overhead processes, robust management, and parallel task execution in Elixir.

A Simple Process

Process Overhead

When Processes Die

Parallel Map: The “Hello, World” of Erlang

A Fibonacci Server

Agents

Quiz Yourself: Working With Multiple Processes

15.

Nodes—The Key to Distributing Services

4 Lessons

Step through distributing services using nodes, naming processes, and handling I/O in Elixir.

Naming Nodes

Naming Our Processes

Input, Output, PIDs, and Nodes

Quiz Yourself: Nodes - The Key to Distributing Services

16.

OTP: Servers

7 Lessons

Unpack the core of building robust server processes in Elixir using OTP framework.

Tidying up the Interface

Making Our Server into a Component

Quiz Yourself: OTP Servers

17.

OTP: Supervisors

4 Lessons

Work your way through Elixir's supervisory system to maintain application stability and reliability.

Supervisors and Workers

Worker Restart Options

Supervisors Are the Heart of Reliability

Quiz Yourself: OTP Supervisors

18.

A More Complex Example

4 Lessons

Apply your skills to manage server processes and handle errors in Elixir applications.

Introduction to Duper

The Duper Application

But Does It Work?

Quiz Yourself: A More Complex Example

19.

OTP: Applications

4 Lessons

Solve problems in building and deploying robust Elixir OTP applications with Mix and Distillery.

The Application Specification File

Turning Our Sequence Program into an OTP Application

Releasing Our Code

Quiz Yourself: OTP Applications

20.

Tasks and Agents

5 Lessons

Follow the process of managing background processes and state using Tasks, Agents, and GenServer.

Tasks

Agents

A Bigger Example

Choosing Between Agents and Tasks or GenServer

Quiz Yourself: Tasks and Agents

21.

Macros and Code Evaluation

9 Lessons

Build on mastering Elixir macros for code evaluation, manipulation, and custom constructs.

Implementing an if Statement

Macros Inject Code

Using the Representation as Code

Using Bindings to Inject Values

Macros Are Hygienic

Other Ways to Run Code Fragments

Macros and Operators

Digging Deeper

Quiz Yourself: Macros and Code Evaluation

22.

Linking Modules: Behaviours and use

3 Lessons

Step through linking Elixir modules using behaviours and the `use` macro for enhanced functionality.

Behaviours

use and __using__

Quiz Yourself: Linking Modules - Behaviours and use

23.

Protocols—Polymorphic Functions

9 Lessons

Unpack the core of Elixir protocols, built-in protocols, and their polymorphic applications.

Protocols

The Available Types

Protocols and Structs

List.Chars and String.Chars

Quiz Yourself: Protocols - Polymorphic Functions

24.

More Cool Stuff

3 Lessons

Work your way through creating custom sigils and multi-application umbrella projects in Elixir.

Writing Our Own Sigils

Multi-application Umbrella Projects

Quiz Yourself: Write Sigils and Create Umbrella Projects

25.

Appendix

10 Lessons

Grasp the fundamentals of exception handling, custom exceptions, and type specifications in Elixir.

Raising an Exception

catch, exit, and throw

Defining Our Own Exceptions

Quiz Yourself: Exceptions

When Specifications Are Used?

Specifying a Type

Defining New Types

Specifications for Functions and Callbacks

Using Dialyzer

Quiz Yourself: Specifications and Dialyzer

Course Author

The Pragmatic Programmers

Project

Solving the 8 Queens Problem Using a Genetic Algorithm in Elixir

intermediate

1 hour

Project

Solving the 8 Queens Problem Using a Genetic Algorithm in Elixir

Solve the 8 Queens problem using a genetic algorithm in Elixir, focusing on aggressive mutation for optimal solutions.

intermediate

1 hour

Project

Create a GenServer and Supervisor From Scratch

intermediate

1 hour

Project

Create a GenServer and Supervisor From Scratch

Learn to create and manage a GenServer and Supervisor in Elixir for fault-tolerant applications.

intermediate

1 hour

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