Scala at Crossing-Tech

Nicolas Jorand, lead developer at Crossing-Tech SA, Switzerland [1], has created a concise three page summary of the Scala language [2]. Beginners and experts alike will find it an excellent and handy reference. After 10 years developing software and providing system integration services for the banking industry the Crossingtech team decided to switch to Scala (read below for more).

He explains that one of the companies main products, Connectivity Factory™ automates the majority of the process of connecting an organisations disparate and old legacy systems. It includes a wide range of standard connectors for proprietary and legacy systems, transaction protocols and webservices that typically allow them to integrate applications in weeks rather than years. However, there always seems to be one or two systems that require customization and this is where Scala comes in.

Connectivity Factory™ is based on open source written in JAVA but an extra 'meta' layer has been developed in Scala by the Crossing-Tech team.

Scala has played a key part, both in Connectivity Factory™ creation and its subsequent deployment. Scala accelerates coding and fits nicely into the Crossing-Tech's agile development methodology allowing them to rapidly producce bespoke connectors. Not only is the coding time reduced but they also get improved code quality, Scala detects many more errors at the compile phase.

In the past customers had been used to system integration work taking as much as 70% of the projects budget. Now with Connectivity Factory™ and Scala customers see the costs have been dramatically reduced and ongoing maintenance costs similarly cut too. Scala code is quicker to understand ensuring any bespoke connectors can be adapted more easily to meet future requirements.

Talking about the transition Nicolas said "There were no major hurdles learning Scala but in the early days there does seem such a lot to remember. We had the idea of creating the reference to jog our memories when trying to recall the less frequently used syntax. We found it a great help so we thought other developers might appreciate it too."