Spring Into Elixir and OTP For Free This Week

Sometimes getting started is the hardest part. Take our recent home improvement project for example.

Last fall we removed half the baseboard in our house for rework. After prying the boards off the walls, we carried the stacks downstairs and laid out all the pieces on the basement floor.

​Seeing the project spread out before us like that was a little overwhelming. 😱 Rework was going to be a multi-step process:

• repair
• sand
• paint

We were initially drawn to several less intimidating and smaller house projects, like hanging mirrors. 🔨 Meanwhile, our baseboard began to settle in for a long winter’s nap on the cold concrete floor.

Then one evening we decided to start the project with a little bit of putty and caulking. “Let’s just take an hour or so, play some good music and make a few repairs,” I said.

Once we got over the initial hurdle we quickly found a comfortable rhythm:

• find an interesting playlist on Spotify
• fill the holes and cracks
• replace sandpaper in the sander
• give the boards a smooth finish
• roll paint
• admire our handiwork
• repeat!

Soon enough we were cruising along. Short boards, long boards, and corner pieces quickly moved from the beat-up stack to the looking-like-new pile. To our great relief, we actually completed this project long before winter started to show glimpses of spring.

If you have a similar overwhelming feeling 😩 when it comes to the project of learning Elixir , we’d like to help. Maybe all you need is someone to come alongside you and say ““Let’s just take 10 minutes and write a few lines of code.”

The first video in our Elixir and OTP course is 2 minutes and the second video is only 8 minutes. It’s a small hurdle we can jump together and this week you can do it for FREE. The first half of our Developing With Elixir/OTP course is open through Sunday, March 15!

Our hope is that you’ll find an enjoyable rhythm of discovery:

• watch a short video
• write some code
• learn a new part of the language
• watch another concise video
• write some more code
• experience an “Aha!” moment of understanding
• repeat!

Before you know it, you can cross this project off your list. ☑️

Chaz Watkins recently wrote in to tell us:

“I loved that this course showed the primitives of Elixir and Erlang in detail before introducing the nice-to-have abstractions. This was fantastic for understanding the why behind the abstractions!”

If you find yourself cruising along and want to finish the course, we’d be delighted to have you along for the entire ride!

In the second half of the course, you’ll find that abstractions such as GenServers and supervisors quickly move from the mysterious stack to the “I totally get it now” pile.

Now that’s a great way to kick off spring! 😎