ryanwold.net - Civic Tech, Bitcoin, and Open Government Innovation

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I've heard good things about Elixir and its web framework, Phoenix.

### Getting Started

I'm using MacOSX, so I had to do a few things to get started:

* run `brew install elixir` to install Elixir, which also installs Erlang
git clone the phoenix repo. now you have a `/phoenix` directory
within their, install dependencies
create a new Phoenix app called `splurty`
cd into `/phoenix/splurty`, and run `mix phoenix.server`, which starts a web server on port 4000

I'm running Elixir 1.8.1.

### Terminology

Elixir, like most languages, has distinct names to represent common programming language concepts. This Terminology section is to track and define these concepts like a glossary.

* module - is like a class in Ruby
* application - 
* OTP framework - 
* processes
* Phoenix framework - provides an HTML frontend

###### Other words

* concurrent programming
* functional language
* application state

### Commands

* run `mix local.hex` to install `hex`, which is a package repository, like Ruby .gems or Python eggs. More can be found at https://hex.pm
* run `iex` to start an elixir interpreter. This is like Ruby's `irb`
* press `ctrl + c` twice to exit `iex`
* type `h` to see Help
* try `h IO.inspect` or any method name instead of `inspect` to see a function's documentation
* use `v 1` or `v 2` or `v etc` to reference a certain `iex` value
* use `iex:break` if you need to get back to a clean `iex` prompt
* `mix new codinggnome` to create an application called `codinggnome` in `/codinggnome` - source code will live in `/codinggnome/lib`
* type `mix` to compile the app's code
* `elixir -h` and `iex -h` to show help
* `iex -S mix` - run `iex` with `mix` - within the session, type `r Module` to reload a module, or `c lib/module_name.ex` to recompile the modulef

### Examples

* `irb`

```
2* 12
24
```

* type `String.` then press `tab` to see a list of functions for the `String` module

---

```
File.read("words.txt")

returns

{ :ok, :binary } - a binary "string-like" object (but not a string)
```

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