Bookmarked, I needed this, very helpful. Thanks.
Scala School
51–60 of 77 posts
Re: Scala School
#52I've finished Martin Odersky's Scala Course. I've built a few small play2.0 apps. I've used Scala to solve ~20 Project Euler problems, and I'm fiddling around with parsers and scalaz. However, all the Scala positions I've found are looking for engineers with experience using Scala in production. How can I make that jump? Are there any opportunities out there for junior engineers who are proficient in Scala?
Be careful; once you've been working in Scala, going back to Java is unpleasant. =)
I worked with Scala at EPFL during my 2 year post doc (in Martin's group). I later started working for Microsoft, and found the transition to C# to be initially painful but not incredibly so. I'm now a happy C# programmer, though I take a lot of liberties [1] with the system, and I also use C# mostly to build programming systems of my own [2] (though Scala has had an everlasting influence on my own work).
C# is a bit more advanced in Java (they have lambdas), and in someways better than Scala (reified generics). But the best thing about C# is that...it forces you to to settle on less elegant but functional designs in a "worse is better" style. I found myself obsessing over my Scala code to come up with perfect solutions because...I could...while in C# perfect solutions obviously don't exist. C# relieves the burden of choice, which is an interesting trade off to keep in mind when designing PLs.
[1] http://bling.codeplex.com/
[2] http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=1898...
Re: Scala School
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Be careful; once you've been working in Scala, going back to Java is unpleasant. =)
I worked with Scala at EPFL during my 2 year post doc (in Martin's group). I later started working for Microsoft, and found the transition to C# to be initially painful but not incredibly so. I'm now a happy C# programmer, though I take a lot of liberties [1] with the system, and I also use C# mostly to build programming systems of my own [2] (though Scala has had an everlasting influence on my own work). C# is a bit…
That's actually a very fair point - when it comes to usability with respect to the functional style, sometimes less is more. I think C# is actually a pretty good example of a pragmatic language that offers FP to make your life easier, but doesn't beat you over the head with it. If I could choose between Java and C# purely on the basis of the language, there is no question that I'd choose C#.
Re: Scala School
#54Timely. I'm interested in scala. Would love a couple opinions from those in the know ... (1) As a (very) experienced java guy, what's really the best learning approach: comparative? clean slate? I'd "like" to do Odersky's course, but I can't commit to scheduled tasks; (2) A minimal framework seems like a good idea to me - rather than Play!, what do folks think about Scalatra as a starting point?
Re: Scala School
#55I've been looking for examples of applications built with scala and akka that I can learn from. I've built small, toy-ish stuff but I feel I learn a lot by looking at examples. Any have any recommendations?
Re: Scala School
#56I've finished Martin Odersky's Scala Course. I've built a few small play2.0 apps. I've used Scala to solve ~20 Project Euler problems, and I'm fiddling around with parsers and scalaz. However, all the Scala positions I've found are looking for engineers with experience using Scala in production. How can I make that jump? Are there any opportunities out there for junior engineers who are proficient in Scala?
send me your resume developer@huffingtonpost.com
Re: Scala School
#57Starting out, it makes sense to just "write Java in Scala", and gradually introduce the advanced concepts of Scala as you learn them. That way, you can be immediately productive.
I'm leading a scala transition at a javashop. I think you need a crital mass of people who understand scala as well as a lot of respect for your colleagues for this to go smoothly, 10x so if you have legacy code. There will be some very tense discussions about how things ought to be implemented, and if not well managed, it can feel like "this approach is wrong, your code is bad and you are a bad engineer" which is to…
It should be evident to anyone with a modicum of understanding of what types are for, that Scala is a superior language to Java. (And Haskell even much more so, but Scala is friendlier to your existing investment in a Java codebase.)
> There will be some very tense discussions about how things things ought to be implemented (...)
Encoding as much as possible of the problem domain's logical constraints in types. Any property enforced by a type checker (and not subverted via a type system escape hatch) is a property that you do not have to test.
> (...) and if not well managed, it can feel like "this approach is wrong. your code is bad and you are a bad engineer"
My experience with most programmers using Java/C#/Python/whatever is precisely that: "Their approach is wrong. Their code is bad. And they are bad engineers." I have to waste my precious time subverting their brittle type systems (downcasts, reflection, assuming stuff is not null, etc.) and enforcing correctness the hard way (extensive testing or even good old non-computer-assisted brain usage), when I could simply read type signatures, get free theorems, run a couple of tests for checking stuff that cannot be inferred from types, and move on to the next thing.
Re: Scala School
#58after years of java coding, i started following the scala "trend" but had no chance of actually using it where i used to work. nonetheless, i did coursera's odersky course and started using it here and there for (very little) personal projects. with that in my toolbelt i was able to find the job i now have. they were using scala/akka/play (but also scalding and other stuff) and they were okay with somebody with little experience but willing to commit to it. i accepted and now have spent 4 months away from java and diving into scala and i just love every bit of it (even SBT that at first looked very little interesting).
Re: Scala School
#59I've been interested in venturing into Scala but have not found a good resource for getting a development environment setup. Should I be using an IDE or will sbt/Sublime be sufficient?
You'll level up much faster with an IDE (IMO). Ensime in Sublime is kinda pointless I think since it only updates on file change. The REPL and SBT integration is nice. I use Sublime for quick examples in Scala, or as a VIM alternative for larger projects (as opposed to my main editor like with Ruby). For most of my Scala work I use IntelliJ though. The lack of half-decent theming in Eclipse and Preferences/Settings b…
there's this https://github.com/n8han/giter8 project that's supposed to create scala project templates for you from the command line, but never really got into it so i can't really comment.
Re: Scala School
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Be careful; once you've been working in Scala, going back to Java is unpleasant. =)
I worked with Scala at EPFL during my 2 year post doc (in Martin's group). I later started working for Microsoft, and found the transition to C# to be initially painful but not incredibly so. I'm now a happy C# programmer, though I take a lot of liberties [1] with the system, and I also use C# mostly to build programming systems of my own [2] (though Scala has had an everlasting influence on my own work). C# is a bit…
In my (limited) experience, for expressions make for some of the most concise code I've seen. So many problems can be represented as a chain of Options or Futures mixed with standard {val x = expression y} expressions.