What are Behaviours in Elixir? An important part of writing high quality code is defining a public api to be used by consumers and collaborators This is particularly important when it comes to defining an explicit contract that
What are Specifications and Types in Elixir? One of the most defining characteristics of Elixir as a programming language is the fact that it is dynamic, and so all types are inferred at runtime. This is in contrast to static
Writing Comments and Documentation in Elixir An important part of writing code is making it easy to understand for other developers or your future self. In a perfect world, this is achieved through clear and concise code that shows
Working with Mnesia in Elixir Last week we looked at using ETS as a storage mechanism for storing any Erlang term in an Elixir application. ETS is part of OTP and so as an Elixir developer you can
What is ETS in Elixir? If you have been around the Elixir ecosystem for a while, you have probably heard about “ETS”. ETS stands for Erlang Term Storage. It’s a storage engine that is built into OTP,
The Little Elixir & OTP Guidebook [Review] The Little Elixir & OTP Guidebook is an introduction to Elixir and OTP that focuses more on the OTP side of things in contrast to Programming Elixir and Elixir in Action. Whilst it
Building a Casino in Elixir Over the last couple of weeks we’ve covered many of the fascinating aspects of Elixir, Erlang, and OTP that allow us to build highly available, fault tolerant applications. First we looked at
Elixir in Action [Review] Despite being a relatively young language, Elixir already has a wealth of learning resources available including tutorials, screencasts, and books. A while ago we looked at Programming Elixir, which serves as an excellent
Working with Supervisors in Elixir Last week we looked at organising Elixir projects using Mix. Mix is a build tool for creating, compiling, and testing your Elixir projects. In Elixir, an “application” is a set of modules that
Organising your Elixir project with Mix We have already covered a lot of ground so far in this exploration of Elixir, but in just about every example we’ve been running our Elixir code either in iex or from
Understanding GenServer in Elixir Over the last couple of weeks we have started to explore probably the most interesting aspect of working with Elixir (and Erlang) in that applications are built around this idea of small, isolated
Using Agents in Elixir In last week’s tutorial we looked at storing state in Elixir using processes. In functional programming languages, in order to maintain state you need to continuously pass it between functions. Processes allow
Working with State and Elixir Processes A couple of weeks ago we looked at working with Elixir processes. Processes are the basic unit of concurrency in Elixir. They provide isolation and allow us to build fault tolerant applications. Elixir
Using Tasks in Elixir A couple of weeks ago we looked at working with processes in Elixir. To create a new process we can use the spawn/1 function. This creates a new process and executes the
Understanding Concurrency and Parallelism in Elixir A couple of weeks ago we begin the next big section of learning elixir by taking a first look at processes. Processes are the foundation of many of the most attractive characteristics of
Artificial Intelligence - A Guide to Intelligent Systems [Review] Over the last couple of years there have been a number of breakthroughs in the pursuit of artificial intelligence as computing power and “big data” have become more ubiquitous. It has probably never
Implementing Password Reset using Ruby on Rails and Trailblazer Allowing your users to reset their password is one of the foundational bits of functionality of just about every type of web application. It’s usually not that interesting to implement because 9
Working with Processes in Elixir Over the last couple of weeks we’ve explored many of the foundational elements of the Elixir programming language. If you are coming to Elixir from a programming language such as PHP, Ruby,
Writing Integration Tests in Ruby on Rails In our exploration of Ruby on Rails we’ve covered testing quite a few times. It’s important to write tests at various layers of abstraction. A good test suite tests the appropriate
Understanding Comprehensions in Elixir The first time I saw a comprehension in Elixir I was a bit confused as to what the point of it was. Initially I didn’t understand why you would write a comprehension
Using Trailblazer Cells in Action Mailer Over the past couple of weeks we’ve been looking at building out a registration process using Trailblazer and Ruby on Rails. First we looked at Building out a User Confirmation flow in
What are Elixir Protocols? An important concept in programming is “polymorphism”. You may have already come across the term if you have previous experience with another programming language as just about every programming language has this concept
Confirming Users with Trailblazer Over the last couple of weeks we’ve started building a registration process using Ruby on Rails and Trailblazer. In Using Inheritance for Trailblazer Operations we created the functionality to create new users
What are Elixir Structs? A couple of weeks ago we looked at working with maps in Elixir. Something that we didn’t cover, but you will come across are Structs. Structs are an extension of Maps that
Building out a User Confirmation flow in Trailblazer A couple of weeks ago I built out the action for creating new users in Culttt using a Trailblazer Operation (Using Inheritance for Trailblazer Operations). In this application I need 3 different ways
