What is the best way to learn Erlang?
Other than specific projects (although those are welcome as well)...
What tools, books, articles, and other resources should I have at my desk to help me learn Erlang?
Also, are there mobile runtimes for Erlang?
Please point me in the right direction.
Note: yes, I have visited Erlang and Wikipedia, but I'd like to hear some reliable, experienced opinions.
Answer
I'm a month-or-so into learning and the guides I'm enjoying most are:
- The Erlang Site's Getting Started with Erlang Guide
- Joe Armstrong's Book Software for a Concurrent World (thoroughly recommended)
- And I have on order: O'Reilly's Erlang Programming which has had some really positive reviews and sounds like a good companion to Joe Armstrong's book (covering many of the same topics in greater depth, possibly with more "real world" examples)
I think you can dive into the Getting Started guide straight away and it will certainly give you a feel for functional programming and then concurrency.
If you're in London this June there is the Erlang Factory conference which looks really good.
While I remember, these are two good presentations taking you through Erlang and it's uses:
Finally, you can follow my learning experiences on my blog (joelhughes.co.uk/blog) my step by step adjustment of FizzBuzz from python/ruby/php to Erlang might give you a good flavour (sorry about the shameless self promotion).
I have to say learning Erlang is currently one of my greatest pleasures, there is something very satisfying about it!