2009-07-03 Friday - Beginning Scala Book Review

The following is the review I posted tonight on Amazon.com for David Pollak's Beginning Scala book

If you are like me, you are often hard pressed for getting many things done quickly.

If you want a quick introduction to Scala, this book is just right for the level of information provided to get you up and running quickly.

I enjoyed reading David Pollak's "Beginning Scala" - and found it to be very helpful in several ways:

#1 - It is written from the perspective of an experienced Java programmer - and the parallels between the languages that are cited in the text was a very helpful technique for compressing the time needed to digest the material. Ruby parallels are also frequently covered.

#2 - This book is a great book to have on your bookshelf if you want to become immediately productive. David's writing is direct, practical, pragmatic.

#3 - This book is useful for the application developer, library designer, and architect.

At ~290 pages - Beginning Scala does a good solid job of covering the language, with many interesting examples of Scala code.

Chapters include:
1 - About Scala and How to Install It
2 - Scala Syntax, Scripts, and Your First Scala Programs
3 - Collections and the Joy of Immutability
4 - Fun with Functions, and Never Having to Close that JDBC Connection
5 - Pattern Matching
6 - Actors and Concurrency
7 - Traits and Types and Gnarly Stuff for Architects
8 - Parsers - Because BNF Is Not Just for Academics Anymore
9 - Scaling Your Team

I had the pleasure of meeting David at JavaOne 2009 in San Francisco this year. He is a genuinely nice guy - and a passionate Scala enthusiast.

2009-05-21 Thursday - Book: Beginning Scala

I've received a new book from Apress publishing, Beginning Scala, by David Pollak:



I'll have the review posted here and on Amazon in a few days.

2009-06-01 Update:
Wow. Digesting Scala is going to require a bit more deeper thinking/reading before I will feel ready to post a review. Should have a review ready in another 1-2 weeks.

I'm in San Francisco this week for JavaOne - and my good friend, Dr. Dean Wampler, will be presenting

Thursday evening, I will be attending a meeting of the Bay Area Scala Enthusiasts, where Martin Odersky will hold an informal discussion about Scala, where it's going, how it is being used.

Scala LiftOff will be held on Saturday, June 6th, following JavaOne.