Asking advice (Learning curve for Scala is shocking to me)

[Jay Park]

Hi, 

I'm new here. I'd like to ask some advice in general.

The reason I chose Play is its productivity, because I have to build a project within a few months. 

No doubt, as Java developer, I'm impressed with Play's productivity.

However, the learning curve for Scala is shocking to me. 

I always get stuck every time I have to write some on *.scala.html 

and I have to google each time I encounter a problem, syntax, for example. 

How, from where should I start learning Scala? 

Thank you very much, everyone. 

Cheers,

Jay

[sas]

Scala for impatients is a good starting point

[Nilanjan]

That's a good starting point. Check out Scala koans also. Its pretty fun way to learn the language.

http://www.scalakoans.org/

Nilanjan

[Max]

+1 for Scala for Impatient

It took me couple of full days to finish and it worths it

[James Roper]

You might find this helpful:

http://jazzy.id.au/default/2012/03/19/three_things_i_had_to_learn_about_scala_before_it_made_sense.html

[Pascal Voitot Dev]

There is a first step to climb for Scala at the beginning but once you understand a few things then it's quite easy to write scala.
The main things that you must understand is that Scala is not Java and that Scala is functional + OO. The functional aspect is what makes the big difference because it changes the way you code and, in some way, it forces you to really think before coding.
But after climbing this step, you generally discover lots of very interesting things for developers and you then consider your whole code from a new point of view!

Have fun because coding is fun;)

Pascal

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[James Ong]

If you find Scala difficult, pick up Actionscript (syntax is quite similar to Scala) first and you'll learn the the syntax faster, thank to EMACScript 4 standard.

This will give you easier path to master Scala.

[Adis]

As a Java developer I would use Java in a Play2.0 project. Especially if you have to finish it in a few months, go for Java. I have no timeframe and I use Java, because it is more familiar to me, and because the Play Framework supports FULLY Java AND Scala. :-)

Op vrijdag 1 juni 2012 04:25:24 UTC+2 schreef sas het volgende:

[ucin]

Use play 2 with java, and use Japid (https://github.com/branaway/Japid42) you'll be amazed!

[Arun Ramakrishnan]

Personally, I find that the learning curve for Scala is not short. I used to do a lot of groovy and one of the stark advantages is the learning curve of groovy for a Java developer. There are a couple of simple rules where a valid java code is not valid groovy. So, I had a fun time because of the incremental learning process. I would switch over to Java syntax either because I just didn't want to look up the groovy way of doing things or I was in a hurry. But, on the other hand Scala is quite different from Java. So, I always seem to run into stumbling blocks while even trying to write small pieces of Scala code that I would have been very comfortable writing in Java. So, I think its best you invest some time. A couple of months back read half way through Programming in Scala. I generally find it a little tedious to read through a book compared to a less methodical learning while working on incrementally complex projects. But, the half I read has been useful. I know i have and will run into issues because i absolutely know very little in some other areas of Scala. Just last week I had to struggle with this issue and I am pretty sure I don't understand even now what the problem was.

Using Java for Play ? Since Play 2 is a very new framework, I was concerned that I may find a lot of features missing and might have to dig into to the code to add or fix things. And i wanted to put myself in a situation where I would be forced to go read rest half of that book and get more comfy with Scala.

thanks
Arun

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[Jorge Aliss]

+1 for Scala for the Impatient

I started using Play 2 + Scala almost 2 months ago.  I was pretty lost at the beginning but it's just a matter of time.  The learning cure might worry you and slow you down at the beginning but I definitely think it's worth going forward.

Once you get a bit familiar with Scala you won't want to switch back to Java. Well, at least that's how I feel :-) I'm a happy Play 2 + Scala developer.

Jorge