Creative Scala: A New Introduction to Scala

http://underscore.io/blog/posts/2015/03/25/creative-scala-released.html

by noelwelsh • 11 years ago

120 28 11 years ago

muraiki2• 11 years ago

This looks nice! Can anyone recommend other good resources for Scala beginners? I'm checking out Twitter's Scala School[1] but the disclaimer near the start indicates that it's based on an older Scala version. I'm also using Odersky's "Scala by Example"[2]

1: http://twitter.github.io/scala_school 2: http://www.scala-lang.org/docu/files/ScalaByExample.pdf

benjaminjackman• 11 years ago

Usually we have programmers take the Odersky coursera course. [1]

1: https://www.coursera.org/course/progfun

jgrowl• 11 years ago

I took this course about a year ago. It was my real exposure to a functional language. I had a lot of fun!

modersky• 11 years ago

I think the Twitter school is pretty up-to-date. Scala-by-Example is older. There are also a large number of good books teaching Scala. I believe it's worth investing in one or two. And, there's my Coursera course, if you want a more rigorous introduction not just to Scala but to functional programming in general.

67726e• 11 years ago

The Coursera Functional Programming Principles in Scala[0] course is definitely worth the time. Coming from being a Java programmer in my day job, it's made my Scala I've written since a lot cleaner, in my opinion. It's also had the side effect of making Java a bit more unbearable. It's definitely not to be approached as a beginner to programming though.

[0] https://www.coursera.org/course/progfun

muraiki2• 11 years ago

Wow, I didn't expect to receive a reply from you! Thanks, I'll check out the Coursera course. I did start reading "Functional Programming in Scala" by Paul Chiusano and Rúnar Bjarnason, but wanted something a bit more beginner-friendly. Then again I was recovering from a concussion at the time, so perhaps I should revisit it now. :)

stusmall• 11 years ago

Programing in Scala[1] helped make a lot of things click for me. I'd start there.

1.http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Scala-Comprehensive-Step-S...

noelwelsh2• 11 years ago

Thanks! If you like Creative Scala I hope you'll consider Essential Scala, which is our follow on course. It's available as a book and we also deliver face-to-face training online and at public courses: http://underscore.io/training/courses/essential-scala/

We wrote Essential Scala because we didn't think any of the existing introductory books meshed with how we want to teach. Essential Scala focuses on core patterns of functional programming, and only introduces Scala features as necessary to support these patterns.

I'm happy to email you (and anyone else who is interested) an excerpt. I'm noel at underscore dot io.

rrherr• 11 years ago

I like Venkat Subramaniam's "Scala for the Intrigued." There's a 12 part article series[1], and a video.[2]

1: http://blog.agiledeveloper.com/2012/08/scala-for-intrigued-a... 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grvvKURwGNg

cbogie2• 11 years ago

i just met a guy named jason swartz who wrote this book: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920030287.do

http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1234000001798/index.ht...

cbogie2• 11 years ago

*and by just met, i mean just hired @Mesosphere!

doug1001• 11 years ago

"Scala for the Impatient" by Cay Horstmann; awesome resource to learn Scala because the author relies heavily on Scala REPL and the supporting text is full of clear succinct summaries of fundamental scala concepts

Arun2009• 11 years ago

I'd recommend you to bite the bullet and work through "Programming in Scala 2E" by Odersky, Spoon and Venners. It's a pretty thorough and systematic introduction to the language and its philosophy.

catkin• 11 years ago

This is exactly what I was looking for! I started looking at Scala over the weekend and found the existing beginner-oriented documentation to be pretty lacking. I also signed up for the course.

noelwelsh2• 11 years ago

Let me know how you get on with the material. We're very keen to find out how it works in practice.

ssmoot• 11 years ago

The Neophyte's Guide to Scala is the best language intro I've read.

No other platform I'm aware of has anything like Typesafe Activator, which is an awesome learning/tutorial resource.

There's also Scala Koans out there somewhere I found helpful to practice with.

heathermiller• 11 years ago

For a ground-up, thorough, and free course on functional programming in Scala, take the course Martin Odersky teaches our undergrads at EPFL (Functional Programming Principles in Scala): https://www.coursera.org/course/progfun

Given as a MOOC on Coursera.

worklogin• 11 years ago

That course is definitely targeted to people with previous programming experience.

ramblerman• 11 years ago

I would argue the same about the language in general. Not from an elitist perspective, but I don't think it is a particularly beginner friendly language.

eranation• 11 years ago

Great course, well tought and constructed. Great auto grader for the excercises. Both challenging and fun.

P.s. I liked your talk at north east scala symposium about scala's type system, looking foreword to more like this

moondowner• 11 years ago

Sadly this course dwelves too much into mathematics. Most of the time, when learning a new language one might want to make a simple real-world app.

Don't get me wrong, the course is good, but sometimes some things could be presented in a simpler way. If I were to enroll into the course again, first I'd check out Twitter's Scala School page to learn some basics: https://twitter.github.io/scala_school/

davegurnell• 11 years ago

Totally agreed with Heather. Martin's Coursera course is an excellent functional programming course. The fact that it's free is kind of crazy.

Differentiating Coursera and Creative Scala, Coursera is aimed at people with some programming experience and is intended as a comprehensive introduction to functional programming. Creative Scala is intended as a taster rather than a comprehensive course. It is designed to be run as a workshop in a few hours to a day.

The bulk of Underscore's basic Scala training is our Essential Scala book/course, which is aimed squarely at people requiring learning Scala for commercial purposes. Essential Scala is a follow-on from the material in Creative Scala.

Fiahil• 11 years ago

I like the idea of using graphics to introduce functional programming to beginners. From experience, I think taking the risk of introducing key concepts in an visually appealing way is much more effective than using classic examples (calculators?).

dajobe• 11 years ago

Even better, it's from the future: Posted 25 Mar 2015

Creative Scala: A New Introduction to Scala

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