Scala in Action: Covers Scala 2.10 First Edition

I agree with other reviewers that this is not an introductory book in Scala. On the other hand it pulls together a number of intermediate and advanced topics and presents them in a very useful way.Be prepared to spend some time with the examples to work out for yourself some of the details of what is going on. The examples provided give a good overview of the techniques and language features used but I found there were a number of details that I just didn't get on the first few passes. Google, StackOverflow, and some blogs turned out to be very helpful in rounding out my understanding of these examples and I walked away with a much greater understanding of the language, its features, and these more advanced uses than I ever would have without this book.This book provided the first explanation of the State Monad I have felt I actually understood. This is a real accomplishment. I tried understanding the explanations in Haskell and F# and even some of the explanations in Scala that I found on the net and they all left me at least a little confused. Chapter 5 gave an explanation that (eventually) clicked with me. For that alone the book is worth the price.One note on the examples. My experience may not match that of most developers. I have worked on a lot of embedded systems dealing with everything from the UI to interacting with hardware. But I have not done much with databases or web development. So, the examples chosen don't speak directly to my background. Even so, I was still able to follow the examples. My current Scala project is a DSL using Scala's parser combinator library. So I would have liked to see an example along these lines. However, that might not have really met the objectives of the book. What was provided helped me anyway.For the purpose of full disclosure, I started this book as a relative novice in Scala. When I ran into some roadblocks I realized my knowledge of the language and even some basic functional programming techniques needed to be better so I got another book (Odersky) to get me up to speed on the language, and, just to be safe, I also read "Learn you a Haskell.." to make sure I had a good understanding of basic functional programming techniques in another language as well. Then I came back to Scala in Action and it really made a difference. Some Scala syntax is given a reasonable explanation (higher-kinded types in chapter 6, for example) but others are not explained at all, expecting you to be able to figure it out. I think the mix works well if you have a well-grounded understanding of the language to begin with.

This is an advanced book for advanced developers. Do not buy this book as your first book about Scala; it is a very poor introduction. Example: here are the two definitions offered for Closure >> Closure is a first-class function with free variables that are bound in the lexical environment.... A Closure is any function that closes over the environment in which it's defined. << If those definitions make sense to you, then OK, buy the book. Me, I'm not smart enough, I had to go to Wikipedia in order to understand what Closures are. Need another example? Pattern-matching looked pretty easy at first, because it looks so much like the Java Switch statement (and they can be similar). But then the author drops this on the reader: List(1, 2, 3, 4) match { case f :: s :: rest => List(f, s) case _ => Nil } result: List[Int] = List(1, 2). If that makes sense to you, then OK, buy the book. The author gives almost no explanation, writing only: >>Think of it as what it will take to create a List of 1, 2, 3, and 4 from the expression f :: s :: rest, and then this will make more sense.<< There are other examples. I have many years in software development but this book is not helping me understand Scala. And the author claims you'll enjoy learning this fun language! Maybe it's just me, maybe developers more clever than I can get some benefit from this challenging, high-level approach.

Being an experienced Java programmer I found what I was looking for to learn Scala in this book. This is well written for a person who knows how to program and who is willing to appreciate two key aspects of Scala - conciseness and functional programming. I think this was witten by a person who is a strong programmer and knows how to effectively communicate the key points of this language.

I didn't buy the book from Amazon, but the book is very good, easy going, read only a third of it butI'm already satisfied.

This book is definitely not for beginners. Do not buy this book if you are new to Scala. I struggled mightily reading this book. Time for me to buy a different book.....and maybe come back to this when I already know the language...

Probably the best book to start learning Scala & FP for an OOP programmer. I have been trying to learn Scala for years; finally this book got me there.I think the best thing about the book is not that it explains Scala syntax, but it slowly but surely opens the window to thinking like a functional programmer.

The major part of this book is about the key features of Scala, which need to be highlighted for experienced programmers. I don't think it is suitable for beginners, but it is perfect for your 2nd or 3rd Scala book to read.

Java is definitely a prerequisite here - not so much for the code fragments - but the discussion of the philosophy of Scala that sometimes goes into some detail.It isn't a structured introduction by any means and Developers without core OOP/Functional background will certainly struggle a bit - I found my (rusty) Computer Science degree extremely useful to fill in missing gaps, even then this isn't an easy read.. Unlike the previous reviewer I would respectfully say novices to Programming would feel completely out of their depth very fast and even those with some programming skills would benefit from a basic theoretical computer science course.However it thoroughly covers Scala (2.10) and made me feel a lot more confident in developing under Android.I haven't read the Odersky book so can't contrast - but the emphasis on real world applications does make it a really useful addition to the albeit few books out there at the moment.Highly Recommended for those who know some Java, others might not I feel get the maximum benefit this book provides.Added to say: I have spent some time with the Odersky book which seems a far gentler introduction - in fact considerably so. I'd recommend Odersky for beginners and those with some imperative experience and this book for those with at a reasonable grasp of Java or with a classical computer science education.

I didn't feel that the content in this book flowed very well, and it was littered with basic spelling and grammar errors that really should be picked up by the editor prior to publishing. I get the sense that some aspects were a bit rushed, and was quite disappointed with my purchase.Something that attracted me to this particular book was that it is quite recent and covers Scala 2.10 - but in hindsight, I'd rather buy a better (albeit slightly dated) book and fill in the gaps myself.I usually find myself addicted to my tech books, battling to put them down... this one didn't quite live up to that standard. Can't say I'd recommend it.

In a nutshell: This is a great book if you are looking for a rapid introduction to Scala with a very practical focus - where else would you be building a Scala-based RESTful API and MongoDB driver within the first few chapters, and have fun doing it! Although the book states that the target audience is open to all levels, I believe that programmers with some previous exposure to an OO language will get the most out of it. That's not to say novice developers won't enjoy the book, but they may find it quite fast paced.'Scala in Action' will offer seasoned developers much to think about, as this book is very focused in teaching you pragmatic (and idiomatic) usage of Scala. The fact that Scala manages to blend both Object Oriented and Functional programming styles means that learning this language provides a great transition into the differing approaches offered by these styles, and every good programmer knows that the more tools he/she has available, the more productive (and elegant/expressive) they and their code will become.In addition to the topics mentioned above this book also covers concurrency using the Actor model with Akka (to which I am becoming more and more of an advocate!), testing and TDD (which I believe is mandatory in any new technology book) and the interoperability between Java and Scala.I haven't fully digested all of the book yet, and I believe I'll be reading it several times (and more imporantly, experimenting even more with the code samples). However, 'Scala in Action' has been a perfect companion in my first serious voyage into learning this language, and it comes highly recommended for anyone else attempting the same task!

Il libro spiega in maniera esaustiva molti argomenti di scala, non prende in esame tutti gli aspetti, ed è in inglese, ma per chi comincia e mastica bene l'inglese è un buon libro a mio avviso.