Foreword

You’re standing in front of a huge, steep wall of rock. Your neck is straining as you bend your head back as far as it will go to take it all in. If you squint, you can barely see something moving around at the top. There’s probably some really good stuff up there. You’ve heard from people you trust that it’s worth climbing this wall. But, you’re damned sure going to hurt yourself on the way up. You can already see some of the jagged edges jutting out. And what if it turns out that you don’t like what you see when you get there?

Learning difficult things is like this—and make no mistake: Scala is difficult to learn. And you may very well not like what you see when you get to the top. I’d guess that only a small fraction of developers learning a language like Scala ever put it to use. But it’s almost always the climb that makes a challenge worth the effort. Scala is a lot to chew on. It’s got what seems way too many features. It’s going to appear, at least initially, overdesigned. You’re going to hurt yourself on the way.

By the time you reach the top, you’ll understand why those features exist, how they make your Scala programs better, and, more important, how they make you a more effective programmer. You’ll still be sore from the bumps along the way but that pain will help you remember the lessons learned. You may even find yourself happily and productively working full-time in Scala for years to come!

As worthwhile as a journey like this may be, you don’t want to climb a mountain this high alone, if you can help it. When covering unfamiliar—even alien—territory you want a guide who can make it look easy. That’s Nilanjan Raychaudhuri. He has a way of putting people at ease when describing complex subjects. Scala itself isn’t that complex—it’s really just a bunch of simple pieces that join to form a deceptively capable whole. Nilanjan has a talent for making us believe that those pieces really are simple and are there for unearthing the underlying principles that bind them together. Indeed, even for the nuts and bolts of installation, configuration, and project compilation, reading this book is like having an experienced mentor accompany you every step of the way.

Some of the concepts in Scala in Action are going to be more foreign than others. When you hit these bumps, take your time. Musicians don’t become great by playing the songs they know over and over. Elite athletes don’t consistently stay in their comfort zones. It’s the jagged edges that improve us.

If you approach this climb properly, you’ll reach the top sharper, more open-minded, and, best of all, less afraid.

CHAD FOWLER

AUTHOR, SPEAKER, AND

PROGRAMMING LIFESTYLE ENGINEER