Learn Scala

Some forced downtime due to a hip replacement, and I’ve started to look at Scala. I like it. I just need to think up an example application to program to get to grips with the new syntax.

I just got the book Programming in Scala and started going through it. So far, I am very impressed by the language and also the way the book presents new concepts.

What initially got me interested was reading some Ruby on Rails and Groovy blogs, and I also saw a great presentation on the Lift web development framework.

This is a learning goal for me, to pick up a new programming language that will be useful down the road. I see scalability as a major problem in enterprise software development, and Actors seem like a cool construct to deal with it.

Ruby and Groovy were simple to learn (being very similar in syntax), which I don’t expect Scala to be. Functional programming languages force you to think about problems differently.

I’m just going to keep working through the book and eventually come up with a project idea.

wrwer

Since I dropped the idea of learning Haskell, I’m happy to have found Scala. I’ll get into Functional Programming without a complete break from Java.

I’m involved in giving a course for Ericsson and as a part of that, I have the opportunity to show off some of Scala. Mixed reactions. People that know Dylan and Erlang are less impressed. People that know Java wish they didn’t. Maybe I’ll compile something out of this at some point.