Newbie Scala user
Ewald Horn
I'm a newbie Scala user, having spent the last 14+ years doing mixed Java development. In a recent project, we used the Groovy / Grails combination to try out a dynamic language on Java, and, while I found it to be interesting, bits and pieces felt less mature than I would have expected. Someone suggested I take a look at Scala, as it would fit more into my "traditional" Java frame of reference. Given that more and more applications are web-based, I find myself wishing for a simpler way to write high-performance, reliable software, hence the search for something beyond Java. Of course, I do not wish to abandon the tried and trusted JVM, that, despite quirks and bugs, is a well-known and reliable deployment platform.
So far I've been impressed with how Scala feels like a "better" Java, yet, do not invalidate all of my previous experience. I was wondering though, if there's anyone in South Africa who is using Scala in a commercial project? It would be great to learn more about the challenges one can expect when going commercial with Scala.
Thank you,
Ewald Horn
Gary Pampara
I work for a company that has several parts of a larger product
written in Scala (mainly because it was just simpler to write it in
Scala). We have zero issues, apart from some problems related to
boxing that we soon fixed. Additionally, about 80% of the test code
has now been ported to Scala (this is a great way to introduce the
language).
Please note that even though Scala runs on the JVM, it is not really a
better Java. It's much, much more and if you are willing to learn, the
language will keep surprising you (mostly in a good way - inline type
annotations notwithstanding).
You can start using Scala like Java, but you will start to write more
functionally with time.
You may experience any issues as you would experience with Scala - its
takes some learning but you soon get used to it.
Regards,
Gary
Ewald Horn
thank you - I've had some time to look at Scala properly and you are
indeed correct : It requires a different approach than Java.
I'm going to start writing some tests in Scala for my Java classes,
that's an excellent suggestion, thank you!
Best regards,
Ewald
Gary Pampara
The test libraries available for scala are very, very good. ScalaTest,
Spec2 etc are fantastic in general but ScalaCheck is truly amazing.
Regards,
Gary