Tutorial: Busy Java Developer's Guide to Scala: Thinking

tuesday, - afternoon
Track: Java

Scala is a new programming language incorporating the most important concepts of object-oriented and functional languages and running on top of the Java Virtual Machine as standard "dot-class" files. Sporting the usual object-oriented concepts as classes and inheritance, Scala also offers a number of powerful functional features, such as algebraic data types, immutable objects by default, pattern matching, closures, anonymous functions and currying, and more. Combined with some deep support for XML generation and consumption, Scala offers Java programmers an opportunity to write powerful programs with concise syntax for a new decade of Java programming. In this workshop, we try to graduate "beyond" the syntax by tackling the hardest problem of learning a new language--thinking in that new language. After a brief high-level discussion of some of functional concepts and design ideas/idioms, we'll take a programming challenge, collectively examine how we can implement it in Scala, but instead of just trying to use the O-O approach, we'll try to "think functionally" as well and use all of Scala's features to come up with the most succinct, reusable code we can imagine. It's a deliberately open-ended group-oriented discussion, looking to bring everybody into a different mindset.