Name: Designing Elixir Systems With OTP
ISBN: 9781680506617

Designing Elixir Systems With OTP

You know how to code in Elixir; now learn to think in it. Learn to design libraries with intelligent layers that shape the right data structures, flow from one function into the next, and present the right APIs. Embrace the same OTP that's kept our telephone systems reliable and fast for over 30 years. Move beyond understanding the OTP functions to knowing what's happening under the hood, and why that matters. Using that knowledge, instinctively know how to design systems that deliver fast and resilient services to your users, all with an Elixir focus. Elixir is gaining mindshare as the programming language you can use to keep you software running forever, even in the face of unexpected errors and an ever growing need to use more processors. This power comes from an effective programming language, an excellent foundation for concurrency and its inheritance of a battle-tested framework called the OTP. If you're using frameworks like Phoenix or Nerves, you're already experiencing the features that make Elixir an excellent language for today's demands. This book shows you how to go beyond simple programming to designing, and that means building the right layers. Embrace those data structures that work best in functional programs and use them to build functions that perform and compose well, layer by layer, across processes. Test your code at the right place using the right techniques.

What Hacker News says

drekipusJan 2026

I'm looking for some books to help me practise and refine my skills as a developer and Engineer.

I'm currently working in python on a django project, working in a financial domain. I lead a few engineers and direct/manage some projects. But I feel like I'm missing out on something when I read about people making things in zig and rust, or how they apply some numerical modelling techniques to certain problems, plus the new technologies being developed. I feel like I'm very much not knowledgeable or distinguishable enough, so I want to refine my skill a bit and maintain "sharp" in case of something happening and i need to find a new job quickly. And i want to make sure that I'm learning all that I could be learning in my current position.

Some previous books I've read / enjoyed:

* The makings of an Expert Engineer * Designing data intensive applications (haven't finished, moved house and lost the book, want to pick it up again) * Designing Elixir Systems with OTP * Practical Common Lisp

I feel like I have learned a bit with the Elixir/CL books, inwhich I apply to how i write python, but I never branch out to doing my own projects in these languages, so I feel like I'm missing out on utilizing these tools fully.

Is there anything to read that could take me to the proverbial next level?

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nesarkvechnepJun 2025

I really wished to see an OTP-first design. Unfortunately for me, the code is almost procedural as it's touching ETS or Application, which is built on ETS, in nearly every operation.

If the author wishes to learn how to design services in Elixir, or any BEAM language, with OTP, they can take a look at "Designing Elixir Systems with OTP" by by James Edward Gray and Bruce Tate, and "Functional Web Development with Elixir, OTP, and Phoenix" by Lance Halvorsen.

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rkangelOct 2024

Once you are familiar with either Erlang or Elixir I strongly recommend the book "Designing Elixir Systems with OTP" (the one with the bee and honeycomb on the front).

It's not a programming tutorial, but it shows how to structure real world programs to make best use of what you get with Beam+OTP+Er{lang,lixir}. It's written as an Elixir book, but it's talking about architectural concepts that map directly and easily to Erlang.

[summary of the book: write as much as you possibly can in pure functional code, mostly because it's so easy to test. Then use GenServers (etc.) at the boundary to hold the state at the top of your stack of pure code]

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Joel_MckayAug 2023

Elixir/Erlang often simply replaces most of what Kafka, Redis and GRPC offer.

Also, have a look at the Phoenix Framework Channels examples, as it essentially replaces most simple micro-services architectures.

This recipe book covers the common design examples:

"Designing Elixir Systems with OTP: Write Highly Scalable, Self-Healing Software with Layers" (James Edward Gray, II, Bruce A. Tate)

One day, you too may get annoyed with IT complexity, and articles mostly written by LLM chatbots.

Happy computing, =)

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Joel_MckayFeb 2023

OTP allows multiple versions in concurrent upgrades across a cluster.

Additionally: testing, performance profiling, and debugging are natively supported.

Recommend reading:

"Designing Elixir Systems with OTP: Write Highly Scalable, Self-Healing Software with Layers" ( James Edward Gray, II, Bruce A. Tate)

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nesarkvechnepJan 2023

The contexts are boundaries, places where you use process machinery and might call other subsystems, or services, but they’re not the application’s public API. You might want to check Bruce Tate’s book “ Designing Elixir Systems with OTP”.

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