Scala is an exciting new object-functional language that runs on the Java platform. Many major companies are starting to use it, including Twitter, EDF (the largest French energy trading company), Sony, Xerox, and Linked In. Simpler and safer concurrency through actors, powerful functional programming features, compactnessthrough type inference and declarative code, improved debug-ability: these are among the drivers that have caused leading companies to switch to Scala. Discover what all of these companies have discovered!
This presentation will provide an introduction to Scala for Java developers. We will start with a brief explanation of functional programming, its motivation, and the history which lead up to Scala. Afterwards, we will discuss Scala through motivating features and extensive demos and examples. We will dive into the functional features of Scala, including immutability of values, lazy evaluation through streams, declarative list functions, currying, and pattern matching. Furthermore, we will discuss object oriented features such as traits (mixins), operator overloading, type inference, customized scoping, properties, covariant and contravariant generics, and companion objects. In addition, we will cover other features within Scala such as implicit type conversion and actors, which make highly scalable concurrency easy. We will mention Scala frameworks such as Akka, Scalaz, ScalaTest, and the Lift Web Framework that enhance the capabilities of Scala. Finally, I will share personal experiences and gotchas.
Hopefully, by the end of this talk, you will be inspired to start using Scala in your projects!

Speaker

Ben Poserow has been a developer for nearly 13 years, working largely in Java and but also in .NET. He has worked for the last 3-1/2 years at Sungard Consulting Services, providing application solutions for multiple large clients. He presented last year on AppDomains in .NET and Custom LINQ Providers at the Fairfield - Westchester .NET User Group and the .NET Code Camp. He has recently been exploring how to use Scala to accomplish high-performance, highly concurrent computing. He lives in Westchester with his wife Hayley, a child on the way, and enjoys reading, running, biking, hiking, and independent movies.