Learning Scala

Created by bagwell on 2009-03-24. Updated: 2012-04-22, 16:31

The best way to learn Scala depends on what you know already and the way you prefer to learn things. You will find there are a variety of different resources you can use to speed up the whole process. These include books, tutorials, training courses, presentations, and of course the Scala compiler for practice. Many people find a good combination is to have one of the Scala books at hand and to start right away trying the examples with the Scala Compiler. On the other hand, you may want to get started without a book or take a Scala training course. In that case, you will find on this website resources to help you get right on with the task but, as you may expect, in a somewhat more disjointed way.

As your knowledge of Scala grows, you will find there is more advanced material and a very friendly Scala community at hand to help you. They all share a passion for Scala and welcome newcomers warmly. Many have written helpful material for programmers new to Scala, will respond to emails asking for help or are sharing neat new techniques, advanced concepts or tools in one of several Scala forums or personal blogs. Perhaps join a Scala user group close by.

To know more, just select one of the options below according to your existing experience:

Java Programmer

Many things you already know from your Java experience directly carry over to the Scala environment. Scala programs run on the Java VM and are bytecode compatible with Java, so you can make full use of existing Java libraries or existing application code. You can call Scala from Java and you can call Java from Scala, the integration is quite seamless. Moreover, you will also be able to use familiar development tools, Eclipse, NetBeans, or Intellij for example, all of which support Scala. So you have far less to learn.

Many top-notch programmers and industry leaders have been captivated by Scala. They have already created a growing range of books on Scala for you to choose from. Many people prefer the organised structure of a good book to guide them through their learning process but typically like to complement this with hands on practice running the code examples with the Scala compiler. To do this you will need to install the Scala compiler.

Scala supports OO and Functional programming styles. You do not need to know any functional programming languages in order to learn Scala. Most of the books and learning materials will introduce you to the concept of passing functions to methods just like other variables, and other functional language features, like immutability, that make the support of multi-core concurrency much easier.

Resources

While you wait for a book you will find the following resources useful:

Video Talk on Scala by Martin Odersky
This talk was given by Martin Odersky, the creator of Scala, at the FODEM conference. It provides an excellent introduction to the language features and much of the rationale behind its design. You can find this copy of his slides and a transcription of his talk handy.
Try Simply Scala
Simply Scala is a web site where you can interactively try Scala. There you will find a tutorial that gives a rapid overview of the basic language features, the syntax, examples you can run and the ability to try your own code with an interactive interpreter.
Scala Training Courses
Typesafe and its partners provide regular Scala training courses and Scala consulting in many locations world-wide. They provide expert teachers, including Martin Odersky, Iulian Dragos, Heiko Seeberger and other certified Scala trainers, to take you through the Scala language in a systematic way either in group classes at their facilities or on your own site.
Free On-Line Books on Scala
A free sample of Scala for the Impatient, a book written by Cay Horstmann is available from Typesafe for download. A very practical book for developers with Java experience learning Scala. O'Reilly has made Programming Scala, a book written by Alex Payne and Dean Wampler freely available on-line. This comprehensive book will appeal to experienced programmers wanting to learn Scala. It is packed with examples and clearly explains in a pragmatic way most of the more advanced features of Scala.
"Programming in Scala," 2nd ed., by Martin Odersky, Lex Spoon, and Bill Venners
This is the award winning, authoritative book co-written by Scala's designer. The second edition comes with more than 100 pages of new material covering new features in 2.8, while the first edition of the book has been made freely available. For more on this and other books, see the list of available Scala books.

Try Kojo
Kojo is a Scala development environment designed for use in schools. It comes with a Scala tutorial that gives a rapid overview of the basic language features, the syntax, examples you can run and the ability to try your own code. It is simple to download and install.
Java to Scala with the Help of Experts
A collection of some of the almost endless supply of tips available for Java programmers new to Scala. There are also mini-blog series designed to take you through many of the important features of the Scala language in a friendly way.
Brief Scala Tutorial
A 20 page introduction to scala and some of the basic concepts and a good place to start. You will find more code examples here.
Scala By Example
Takes you through the Scala features with many examples. It does assume that you are already familiar with the basic Scala syntax and a basic understanding of functional programming. It is an excellent way to expand your knowledge and skill.
Scala Overview
This is a paper summarizing the features of the Scala Language in a formal and concise way. An excellent reference for language researchers or advanced programmers.
Tour of Scala
Here is a more descriptive, yet formal, summary of the Scala language features with many code examples. A great language reference for programmers needing to check correct use of a specific Scala feature or its correct syntax. Once you have mastered the basic Scala syntax then this is a good place to look to learn specific features.

Scala Programmer

If you are a Scala programmer looking for more examples and help, you will a list of useful resources by following this link. You may want to check out the community resources too, or browse the list of the available documentation on this page.

C++, C#, Ruby, Python, Visual Basic, etc Programmer

If you have no Java experience and are coming from these languages, then you will need to learn about the Java ecosystem. However, many concepts such as closures, passing functions, type inferencing or generics will already be familiar to you. Since Scala makes full use of the Java libraries and runs on the JVM you would probably find it useful to have a book on Java and the Java libraries handy: Scala code can call Java code and Java code can call Scala code, and some of the basic concepts and APIs in the two are related. In order to discover Scala and its features, you will probably need one of the Scala books, and the Scala compiler. You will also find useful some of the introductory resources available on this website.

If you are a C# programmer, you may find the series "Scala for C# programmers" by Ivan Towlson on flatlander quite helpful:

From Haskell, ML, F#, Lisp, Clojure, etc Programmer

If you come to Scala from a functional programming background, you will find most of the more advanced functional programming style familiar. Scala integrates OO and functional programming together into one uniform language environment. By the very nature of this integration, the syntax is a little more complex than in pure functional languages. Scala supports OO programming in a very natural way, and you can use a purely functional programming style if you prefer. Since Scala makes full use of the Java libraries and runs on the JVM, you will probably find it useful to have a book on Java and the Java libraries handy: Scala code can call Java code and Java code can call Scala code, and some of the features of the two are related. In order to discover Scala and its features, you will need one of the Scala books, and the Scala compiler. You will also find the introductory resources available on this website.

Computer Language Researcher

If you are a language researcher, you will find "Programming in Scala", the book by Martin Odersky et al, a good place to obtain a general overview of the language. You will find papers, talks, and other academic-related material on Scala, including in-depth discussion of the formal and theoretical aspects of the language, as well as implementation details, in the Language Research section of this website. More introductory material on Scala can be found in the resources section of this page, above. For an in-depth view of the technical details of the language, you may also find of interest the Scala Language Specification.

Beginner Programmer

Nearly all of the material existing for Scala assume that you already have some programming experience and are familiar with the basic jargon. If you have never done any programming, you may like to consider starting with Java first, as there is a large amount of beginner material available. You may then want to progress to Scala from there. If you're impatient, however, it is entirely possible to start directly to Scala; in that case, we would recommend you find someone to help you setting up the Scala compiler and an IDE on your computer. The book "Beginning in Scala" would then be a good companion to start with; you can find further details on that and the other books here.

Introduction