Scala as a language delegates much to libraries. Instead of many primitive concepts and types it offers a few powerful abstractions that let libraries define flexible interfaces that are natural to use.
Haoyi's Scala libraries are a beautiful example of what can be built on top of these foundations. There's a whole universe he covers in this book: libraries for interacting with the operating system, testing, serialization, parsing, web-services to a full-featured REPL and build tool. A common thread of all these libraries is that they are simple and user-friendly.
Hands-On Scala is a great resource for learning how to use Scala. It covers a lot of ground with over a hundred mini-applications using Haoyi's Scala libraries in a straightforward way. Its code-first philosophy gets to the point quickly with minimal fuss, with code that is simple and easy to understand.
Making things simple is not easy. It requires restraint, thought, and expertise. Haoyi has laid out his approach in an illuminating blog post titled Strategic Scala Style: The Principle of Least Power, arguing that less power means more predictable code, faster understanding and easier maintenance for developers. I see Hands-On Scala as the Principle of Least Power in action: it shows that one can build powerful applications without needing complex frameworks.
The Principle of Least Power is what makes Haoyi's Scala code so easy to understand and his libraries so easy to use. Hands-On Scala is the best way to learn about writing Scala in this simple and straightforward manner, and a great resource for getting things done using the Scala ecosystem.
- Martin Odersky, creator of the Scala Language
I first used Scala in 2012. Back then, the language was young and it was a rough experience: weak tooling, confusing libraries, and a community focused more on fun experiments rather than serious workloads. But something caught my interest. Here was a programming language that had the convenience of scripting, the performance and scalability of a compiled language, and a strong focus on safety and correctness. Normally convenience, performance, and safety were things you had to trade off against each other, but with Scala for the first time it seemed I could have them all.
Since then, I've worked in a wide range of languages: websites in PHP and Javascript, software in Java or C# or F#, and massive codebases in Python and Coffeescript. Problems around convenience, performance, and safety were ever-present, no matter which language I was working in. It was clear to me that Scala has already solved many of these eternal problems without compromise, but it was difficult to reap these benefits unless the ecosystem of tools, libraries and community could catch up.
Today, the Scala ecosystem has caught up. Tooling has matured, simpler libraries have emerged, and the community is increasingly using Scala in serious production deployments. I myself have played a part in this, building tools and libraries to help push Scala into the mainstream. The Scala experience today is better in every way than my experience in 2012.
This book aims to introduce the Scala programming experience of today. You will learn how to use Scala in real-world applications like building websites, concurrent data pipelines, or programming language interpreters. Through these projects, you will see how Scala is the easiest way to tackle complex and difficult problems in an elegant and straightforward manner.
- Li Haoyi, author of Hands-on Scala Programming