A few months ago, I heard about Scala and wanted to know more. So I started reading “Scala by Example” but only up to chapter 2. I was already confused after the first chapter and the second was just over the top. For me, learning a new language belongs into the category of “learning for fun” and not crunching seemly weird concepts that don’t apply to any of my current challenges. It took me a while to recover and start over again with the introduction published on Artima and I’m still going full steam ahead with Scala…
To save you the delay I experienced, follow this order:
- If still in doubt that Scala is worth the pain of learning another language, get convinced by the tour.
- By now, you want to learn the language in a more structured way. You are ready for excellent Artima article “First Steps to Scala“. Don’t start with anything from the Scala homepage!
- During reading the introduction, your fingers might get nervous. Calm them down with installing Scala.
- The HelloWorld sample shows you quickly the use of the installed tools.
- Ok, you can start tackling the tutorials page: Start with the 15-page tutorial.pdf.
- Installing the eclipse plugin is also a good idea. The Quick Tour “Working with Eclipse and the Scala Plugin” shows you everything. But don’t expect too much from the plugin: It’s currently the worst thing in the Scala ecosystem.
- Ultimately, download Programming in Scala. This pdf joins the “Scala by Example” and the language specifications, so you have all in one document.
- And finally, I learned a lot browsing and tweaking the source of lift, a web framework.
After working through all those steps, chapter 1 and 2 become great readings.
Happy learning!
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Agreed. Scala is very well designed for productivity. In particular, I like its type system and FP features. But, like most languages that have grown in a research environment, its marketing leaves much to be desired. The developers have put out a good bit of documentation, but it’s not quite targeted at your average corporate programmer.
I’d love to see a few things: more bling on the website, a book (Scala in Action?) and great progress in IDE plug-ins. Also, since Scala seems particularly well-suited for large-scale applications, some in-production for-profit success stories would be nice.