![[behaviour] using higher-order functions. Or anything in-between.” (Scala, n.d.) Scala’s
scalability has be recently getting more recognition in the world of big data to pipeline data
between different points in big data system in many popular social media platforms such as
Twitter and LinkedIn or to be used to control cluster based systems. At the 2012 JavaOne
conference, Scala won the ScriptBowl conference as many developers like its scripting
capabilities. (Odersky, What is Scala, n.d.) Many believe that as Scala becomes more widely
used it will be a valuable asset in a wide variety of applications.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/infxa1patrickwalter-160202234417/85/Scala-Overview-INFX-1616-5-320.jpg)
Scala Overview INFX 1616
- 1. The Scala Programming Language: An Overview The perfect blend of object-oriented and functional programming makes for great scalability. Patrick Walter 1/29/2016
- 2. Programming languages come in many different shapes and sizes. Sometimes they are designed for a particular application and other times they are made to be a general purpose language fit for many applications. A programming languages’ paradigm is the fundamental style of the language which also sometimes defines the capabilities of the language. Peter Van Roy formally defines a programming paradigm as “an approach to programming a computer based on a mathematical theory or a coherent set of principles.” (Van Roy, n.d.) While some languages follow one paradigm, many tend to support multiple paradigms. Almost all programming languages fall under four main paradigms. The four main programming paradigms are imperative, functional, logical, and object-oriented. (Nørmark, 2013) An interesting example of a language that supports multiple programming paradigms is Scala Programming Language. Scala is a functional object-oriented language which runs on the Java Virtual Machine and was developed at the Programming Methods Laboratory at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Scala is a highly functional, scalable, and multifaceted programming language with many strengths and weaknesses. Unlike Java and C#, Scala is a purely object-oriented language. By definition, this means that every value is an object and every operation is a message send. (Odersky, et al., 2006) Being an object- oriented language, Scala uses a class hierarchy that has a root of Scala.Any and then splits into two main types, value classes and reference classes. Reference classes are represented by pointers and value classes are represented directly in memory with any need for dereference. (Odersky, et al., 2006) As mentioned before, part of this unified object model includes the notion that all operations are message sends, meaning that they invoke a method. While many operations in Scala are predefined there is the ability to create user-defined
- 3. operations or enhance predefined library operations. (Odersky, et al., 2006) Alone these attributes of Scala make it very similar to many object-oriented languages such as Java, which it can actually seamlessly interact with. (Odersky, et al., 2006) However, unlike Java, Scala is also a fully functional language. All operations in Scala are values. This means that functions, or methods, can be passed as parameters to other functions or returned as a result. This also means that all functions are objects since all values in Scala are objects and functions themselves are values. (Odersky, et al., 2006) The combination of these concepts makes an easily scalable language, as described by Scala’s developers, “The two programming styles have complementary strengths when it comes to scalability. Scala’s functional programming constructs make it easy to build interesting things quickly from simple parts. Its object-oriented constructs make it easy to structure larger systems and to adapt them to new demands.” (Odersky, Spoon, & Veners, Scala:A Scalable Language, 2008) The name for Scala comes from “scalable language”, which means that it is a language that is designed to not only grow on the users but to grow with the users. (Odersky, Spoon, & Veners, Scala:A Scalable Language, 2008) From small single user applications, to massive critical mission applications, Scala is designed to be a versatile language for varying sized systems and applications. Recently Scala has become increasing important in many big data systems and projects that use Apache’s Spark and Kafka which are used by companies like Twitter and LinkedIn. (Mesophere, 2015) However the idea of Scala as a growing language is not only in terms of its size. Scala is a language that the user may actively adapt and extend to fit their every need. For example, Scala uses associative maps that are common in scripting languages but these however these maps are not in the languages syntax. Scala uses library abstractions
- 4. to control concepts like associative maps so that they can be extended and adapted by the user. (Odersky, Spoon, & Veners, 2008) It also supports implicits, operator overloading, and the ability to enhance libraries of existing methods and classes. (Odersky, et al., 2006) As mentioned before Scala is similar to the Java Programming Language, so much so that Java code can be executed within Scala as they both run on the Java Virtual Machine. In comparison to Java, Scala has a very straightforward and simple syntax. This allows for significantly less code that is even more human-readable. Inherently immutable objects in Scala alleviate many thread-safety concerns and its functional paradigm allows for highly functional programs to be used to implement applications that need to concurrency since all functions are side effect free. (Ulrich, 2012) While the multi-paradigm versatility and scalability of Scala can offer many benefits it comes with some costs. Although it’s not a result of the language itself, the lack of community presence is a downside of all new languages. (Ulrich, 2012) However, if Scala proves itself to be useful asset its community of experts and followers will grow with time. Scala is a build to be scalable and adaptable which also has some downsides. In Scala there are often many ways to do the same thing. The ability to overload operators or enhance or adapt library methods and classes gives the designer lots of flexibility, it creates many places for things to go wrong and may create code that is hard to read, trace, and debug. (Moore, 2011) Due to this perfect blend of two very different programming paradigms, Scala has the potential to compete with more mainstream object-oriented languages such as Java and C#, or scripting languages such as Python. In the words of its developers, Scala allows you to “Construct elegant class hierarchies for maximum code reuse and extensibility, implement their
- 5. [behaviour] using higher-order functions. Or anything in-between.” (Scala, n.d.) Scala’s scalability has be recently getting more recognition in the world of big data to pipeline data between different points in big data system in many popular social media platforms such as Twitter and LinkedIn or to be used to control cluster based systems. At the 2012 JavaOne conference, Scala won the ScriptBowl conference as many developers like its scripting capabilities. (Odersky, What is Scala, n.d.) Many believe that as Scala becomes more widely used it will be a valuable asset in a wide variety of applications.
- 6. References Function, O.-O. M. (n.d.). Scala. Retrieved January 29, 2016, from Scala: http://www.scala- lang.org/index.html Mesophere, C. (2015, July 24). Learn Everything You Need To Know About Scala And Big Data. Retrieved January 28, 2015, from Mesophere: https://mesosphere.com/blog/2015/07/24/learn-everything-you- need-to-know-about-scala-and-big-data-in-oakland/ Moore, J. (2011, September 8). What are the downsides of Scala as a programming language? Retrieved Janurary 29, 2016, from Quora: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-downsides-of-Scala-as-a- programming-language/answer/Justin-Moore Nørmark, K. (2013, July 2). Aalborg University. Retrieved January 29, 2016, from Overview of the four main programming paradigms: http://people.cs.aau.dk/~normark/prog3- 03/html/notes/paradigms_themes-paradigm-overview-section.html Odersky, M. (n.d.). What is Scala. Retrieved January 29, 2016, from Scala: http://www.scala- lang.org/what-is-scala.html Odersky, M., Altherr, P., Cremet, V., Dragos, I., Dubochet, G., Emir, B., et al. (2006). An Overview of the Scala Programming Language. Lausanne, Switzerland: Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne. Odersky, M., Spoon, L., & Veners, B. (2008, May 6). Scala:A Scalable Language. Retrieved January 27, 2016, from Artima Developer: http://www.artima.com/scalazine/articles/scalable-language.html Ulrich, H. (2012, October 23). Pros & Cons of Scala Programming for Agile Software Development. Retrieved January 29, 2016, from Celerity: http://blog.celerity.com/pros-cons-scala Van Roy, P. (n.d.). Programming Paradigms for Dummies: What Every Programmer Should Know. Retrieved January 29, 2016, from Institute of Information and Communications and Communication Technologies, Electronics and Applied Mathematics: https://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/VanRoyChapter.pdf