Scala for Java Developers

A few weeks ago I was asked to review a book called "Scala for Java Developers". Being preparing some Scala lessons to share at work it made lots of sense to agree. Finding a good way to introduce Java and .NET developers to Scala is hard. If someone is interested in learning a new language it's easy, just give them the Programming in Scala book. The challenge I'm up against is making a case for actually spending time learning it at all. What caught my eye a few years ago was all the expressiveness and succinctness I could achieve by making the leap. My expectations were to find a book that explained how to translate all the Java knowledge into Scala while learning the interesting new features one could discover making such a transition. The books was not exactly what I expected but that is not a bad thing.

The first chapter introduces the reader to the Activator and drops them into the REPL. It shows good examples of how easy it is to declare classes, play around with collections and express basic stuff. That is what I expected to find but then it picks up speed. It continues on the next chapter by creating a Java web service and exemplifying how to migrate it to Scala piece by piece. Then it goes on to IDEs, SBT, mentions many useful SBT plugins, worksheets and even a writing a REST client. Followed by a tour of all the testing frameworks available on Scala land. Moving to Play Framework and then some debugging.

Halfway through the book most of what regular developer faces on a day to day basis has been touched upon. Scala syntax is explained almost by accident, just as a necessity to show what can be done. It doesn't teach the language but rather provides examples of interesting and most likely new and simpler ways to do stuff a Java developer is used to. The rest of the book continues on at full speed with databases, webservices, xml, json, CRUDs and concurrency. I was surprised it even tackles Iteratees to illustrate reactive web applications like chat rooms. It even mentions Scala.js!

Overall it shows many libraries and tools used in the Scala ecosystem. It takes on many of the common problems most people are trying to solve at work. I think it can appeal to Spring, JavaEE or Rails users and similar. It provides a bird's eye view of the frameworks available while forcing the reader to actually try stuff out immediately in the REPL. Readers will get a feeling for what Scala enables and will surely go out looking for more.

My conclusion is if you are already into Scala and learning on your own or with other books then it is not for you. I recommend the book as a teaser for programmers who don't know Scala at all or barely and want to discover what it is about skipping to the fun part. Also, for someone like me who is trying to get other people interested it provides many ideas and examples that are simple to setup and play with. Having more Scala resources is good and this book fills a spot that needed to be filled.