Re:Advanced programming languages (2009)
by continuational on Sunday June 19, 2016 @02:14PM
(#11933931)
Knowing Java won't help you much in learning Scala. It's the functional programming parts that will trip you up if you haven't done that before, and this is the most valuable part to learn. I use Scala every day, and it was easy to learn; but I suspect that was because I did a lot of functional programming before that.
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Re:Advanced programming languages (2009)
by SkyMarshal on Tuesday June 21, 2016 @11:42AM
(#11946511)
This is true, I was from an OO background and Scala was my first functional language. I had to put it aside for a while and learn Haskell to grok the functional side of Scala. The ML world can be a little alien if you're new to it, and I found it useful to learn from a purely functional language first and then go back to Scala with a better understanding of how it fits OO and ML together.
But ins't one of the nice parts about Scala that you can use it strictly for OO programming, use it for strictly for FP or both?
Yes, that's definitely one of the great things about Scala.
If you come from an OO background, I recommend to avoid using Scala's functional features at the start. Just treat Scala as a nice, conventional OO language until you are comfortable with the language. Then, slowly use some of the more advanced features. Case classes and pattern matching are easy and powerful next steps.
Enjoy the ride!