Chapter 1. Why Scala?

 

This chapter covers

  • What Scala is
  • High-level features of the Scala language
  • Why you should pick Scala as your next language

Scala is a general-purpose programming language that runs on Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and .NET platforms. But the recent explosion of programming languages on JVM, .NET, and other platforms raises a question that every developer faces today: which programming language to learn next? Which languages are ready for mainstream development? Among the heap of programming languages like Groovy, Ruby, Clojure, Erlang, and F#, why should you learn Scala?

Learning a new language is merely a beginning. To become a useful and productive developer, you also need to be familiar with all the toggles and gizmos that make up the language infrastructure.

Before I make the case for why Scala should be your next programming language, it’s important to understand what Scala is. It’s a feature-rich language that’s used in various types of applications, starting with building a large messaging layer for social networking sites such as Twitter[1] to creating an application build tool like SBT[2] (Simple Build Tool). Because of this scala-bility, the name of the language is Scala.

1 “Twitter on Scala: A Conversation with Steve Jenson, Alex Payne, and Robey Pointer,” Scalazine, April 3, 2009, www.artima.com/scalazine/articles/twitter_on_scala.html.

2 Mark Harrah, “SBT, a Build Tool for Scala,” 2012, https://github.com/harrah/xsbt/.

1.1. What’s Scala?

 
 
 

1.2. The current crisis

 
 
 

1.3. Transitioning from Java to Scala

 
 

1.4. Coming from a dynamic language

 

1.5. For the programming language enthusiast

 
 

1.6. Summary

 
 
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