Book review: Introducing Erlang

content/reviews/books/introducing-erlang.md

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+title = "Introducing Erlang: Getting Started in Functional Programming - Simon St. Laurent"
+date = 2020-08-05
+
+[taxonomies]
+tags = ["books", "reviews", "simon st laurent", "erlang", "it", 
+"2020 challenge", "2 stars"]
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+
+[GoodReads Summary](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15811999-introducing-erlang):
+If you’re new to Erlang, its functional style can seem difficult, but with
+help from this hands-on introduction, you’ll scale the learning curve and
+discover how enjoyable, powerful, and fun this language can be.
+
+<!-- more -->
+
+{{ stars(stars=2) }}
+
+Again, an "Introducing" book that one shouldn't expect some deep explanations,
+but heck, this felt shallower than [Introducing
+Elixir](@/reviews/books/introducing-elixir.md).
+
+It follows the same path of the "Introducing Elixir" (or maybe it is the other
+way around, but hey, that's the order I read both), by creating a "what speed
+will something crash if dropped in different planets" library and exploring
+changes.
+
+But the biggest drawback is that the book sticks too much into the Erlang
+Shell and absolutely nothing (besides "here is one thing you can search for")
+outside it. I mean, sure, the language may be nice and fun and all that, but
+what's the point if the build tool is a pain and dependency resolution is
+inexistent -- and I'm not saying Erlang suffers from that, 'cause as a
+learning path, the book says _nothing_ about those things.
+
+For seeing how the language looks like, it's a good book. For something more
+_real_... far away from it.