I've been hoping to pick it up on weekends & time off but startup hours don't leave much free time. I worked on a few simple heroku / json phoenix apps last year. Hoping I can put together a useful but small web app next.
I can recommend to both of you to get the book "Elixir in Action". It's fantastic! Starts very simple and step by step explores the must-need concepts of Elixir.
I started phoenix before fully understanding Elixir and had a hard time. Then I got that book and when I was halfway through I loved Elixir already.
Now I use phoenix for almost everything web related.
Programming Phoenix is also excellent. I think it helps that it was written by the core contributors to Phoenix itself (including Jose Valim, who created Elixir). I really appreciated not only looking at how things work, but also why they work in the way they do. The authors clearly have a real sense of excitement about Phoenix and its contagious.
I started phoenix before fully understanding Elixir and had a hard time. Then I got that book and when I was halfway through I loved Elixir already.
Now I use phoenix for almost everything web related.