I am working on an open cookbook for Julia. It sits at http://julia.cookbook.tips/ . It should be complementary and not substitutional to the official Julia docs.
I would think the cookbook already has its moments. that is, it is already useful, but there are still a lot more questions than answers. I have been better at asking and organizing questions, and not in answering them, which has been mostly Pranav Bhat’s credit.
if you are interested in helping out, please drop me an email (ivo.welch@gmail.com).
We did not know about this other cookbook when we started a year ago or so. I just added it to the list of other good docs on the front page, too.
we needed something for our MFE students, and we may also have modestly different philosophies (more “short recipe” like). in any case, anyone who wants to take bits and pieces from our wiki and add it there is also welcome.
BTW, there’s also Learn Julia the Hard Way. It is incomplete and doesn’t get updates often but the author did take several PR’s I submitted before.
I think a cookbook is sometimes helpful where you can find examples for certain things. Introductory-style books, however, would focus on leading the reader over various topics with incremental difficulty.
I think you are also right on your view that the books are different. I think books about computer languages can be classified according to how they weigh three parts: basic documentation (like the official Julia docs or K&R for C); tutorials (like Learning Perl); and cookbook and pattern solutions (like the Perl Cookbook).
The other julia wiki seems more tutorial like. Our’s is 95% cookbook like.