[erlang-questions] Training new Erlangers

[Thomas Allen]

On Sun, October 21, 2012 1:04 pm, Max Bourinov wrote:
> For me the book "Erlang and OTP in Action" worked very well.

I'm a book learner, and for me it's been a combination of resources and a
roundabout path:

1. Essence: Programming Erlang (Armstrong) for a whirlwind tour of the
language and its features. Get a good feel for the essence of Erlang even
if I didn't understand quite how I'd use it yet.

2. Practice: Erlang/OTP in Action (Logan, Merritt, Carlsson): Oh, so
*this* is how I use it. Not heavy on the details, but does a very good job
of explaining the OTP mindset and practical approaches to working with the
language and tools.

3. Expertise: Erlang Programming (Cesarini, Thompson): Fills in all the
gaps with very thorough coverage of language and OTP features.

4. Art: Programming Erlang (again): Now this book makes a lot more sense,
I can understand everything Armstrong was trying to demonstrate that I
missed the first time around.

So, I'd recommend access to all three books, and of course referring
always to the Erlang/OTP documentation ... can't do without that. And
finally, reading lots of Erlang code, which goes for any language.

Erlang/OTP gives you so much, it's difficult to just "dive in" like you
can for most languages. It's a full ecosystem and you're not just learning
how to make a script run. So, I really don't think anybody should be
surprised that it takes people a while to learn. It's not difficult to
learn per se, there's just a great deal to learn (which of course pays
off)!

Thomas Allen