
Creative Scala: A New Introduction to Scala - noelwelsh
http://underscore.io/blog/posts/2015/03/25/creative-scala-released.html
======
heathermiller
For a ground-up, thorough, and free course on functional programming in Scala,
take the course Martin Odersky teaches our undergrads at EPFL (Functional
Programming Principles in Scala):
[https://www.coursera.org/course/progfun](https://www.coursera.org/course/progfun)

Given as a MOOC on Coursera.

~~~
worklogin
That course is definitely targeted to people with previous programming
experience.

~~~
ramblerman
I would argue the same about the language in general. Not from an elitist
perspective, but I don't think it is a particularly beginner friendly
language.

------
Fiahil
I like the idea of using graphics to introduce functional programming to
beginners. From experience, I think taking the risk of introducing key
concepts in an visually appealing way is much more effective than using
classic examples (calculators?).

------
muraiki
This looks nice! Can anyone recommend other good resources for Scala
beginners? I'm checking out Twitter's Scala School[1] but the disclaimer near
the start indicates that it's based on an older Scala version. I'm also using
Odersky's "Scala by Example"[2]

1:
[http://twitter.github.io/scala_school](http://twitter.github.io/scala_school)
2: [http://www.scala-lang.org/docu/files/ScalaByExample.pdf](http://www.scala-
lang.org/docu/files/ScalaByExample.pdf)

~~~
modersky
I think the Twitter school is pretty up-to-date. Scala-by-Example is older.
There are also a large number of good books teaching Scala. I believe it's
worth investing in one or two. And, there's my Coursera course, if you want a
more rigorous introduction not just to Scala but to functional programming in
general.

~~~
muraiki
Wow, I didn't expect to receive a reply from you! Thanks, I'll check out the
Coursera course. I did start reading "Functional Programming in Scala" by Paul
Chiusano and Rúnar Bjarnason, but wanted something a bit more beginner-
friendly. Then again I was recovering from a concussion at the time, so
perhaps I should revisit it now. :)

~~~
NickPollard
I would definitely recommend Martin's Coursera course, it's incredibly well
structured and very well delivered, with enough difficulty to be challenging
but it guides you through very gently. Well worth it for learning both Scala
and Functional Programming.

~~~
jghn
In retrospect I found it to be more of a "functional programming which happens
to be using scala" class and less an "intro to scala". That's not a bad thing
(nor a good thing, it's just a thing) but it's not necessarily what is most
useful for a person.

A few years ago I joined a group which had been using scala for a while (since
'09ish IIRC) and I took the coursera class to get up to speed. It definitely
helped but the reality was that their code base was closer to being java++
than to haskell and a lot of the early habits I picked up from the coursera
class were immediately beaten out of me once I got rolling there.

One could argue that they were in the wrong, but I disagree - Scala _is_ a
multi-paradigm language and not everyone is going the FP route (I recently
heard Venners refer to Scala as a "reform movement for OO, which is how I
personally treat it, but that's neither here nor there).

All this said, I don't have a better suggestion. As I mentioned I took the
Coursera class and read the Staircase book. The Twitter stuff online was
useful but mainly I just read as much as I could online, tracked down
conference videos, etc.

------
catkin
This is exactly what I was looking for! I started looking at Scala over the
weekend and found the existing beginner-oriented documentation to be pretty
lacking. I also signed up for the course.

~~~
ssmoot
The Neophyte's Guide to Scala is the best language intro I've read.

No other platform I'm aware of has anything like Typesafe Activator, which is
an awesome learning/tutorial resource.

There's also Scala Koans out there somewhere I found helpful to practice with.

------
dajobe
Even better, it's from the future: Posted 25 Mar 2015

