Scala Is The Next Scala

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SCALA IS THE NEXT SCALA Kevin Webber Consultant & Founder @ RedElastic e: [email protected] m: medium.com/@kvnwbbr t: @kvnwbbr

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MY STORY ▸ Started exploring Scala in 2008 while at the Bank of Montreal ▸ Former Lightbend customer (2012-2014) ▸ Enterprise Architect & Advocate at Lightbend (2014-2016) ▸ Founded RedElastic in 2016

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THE LAST FIVE YEARS

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DISCLAIMER EVERYTHING I WILL TALK ABOUT IS AN OPINION

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1. HISTORY

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Value is not STATIC

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Era Scala Java 2008 2.7.x Java SE 6 2010 2.8.x 2011 2.9.x Java SE 7 2013 2.10.x 2014 2.11.x Java SE 8 2016 2.12.x 2017 (Q3) Java SE 9 2018 (Q1) 2.13.x

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2008

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WHY EVALUATE SCALA? ▸ Capital Markets (FX, wire transfers) ▸ Struggling with multi-threaded Java ▸ Struggling with clustered WebLogic ▸ Needed easier concurrency model

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Language features SCALA 2.7 JAVA SE 6 REPL ✓ x Option ✓ x abbreviated syntax ✓ x lambda expressions ✓ x pattern matching ✓ x

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Ecosystem SCALA 2.7 JAVA SE 6 Commercial support x ✓ Tooling x ✓ Hiring x ✓

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SUCCESS? REJECTED AS AN APPROVED LANGUAGE DUE TO: ▸ Lack of commercial support ▸ Lack of tooling ▸ Lack of experienced developers

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2011

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WHY ATTEMPT TO USE SCALA AGAIN? ▸ Needed to build an advanced ecommerce platform with very few back-end developers ▸ A talk by Sadek Drobi at QCon New York brought Scala back to mind and introduced me to Play ▸ Built platform as a monolithic Play application, iterated over time

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Language features FEATURE SCALA 2.9 JAVA SE 7 REPL ✓ x Option ✓ x abbreviated syntax ✓ x lambda expressions ✓ x pattern matching ✓ x

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Ecosystem SCALA 2.9 JAVA SE 7 Commercial support ✓ ✓ Tooling x ✓ Hiring x ✓

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SUCCESS? APPROVED AS A LANGUAGE: ▸ Commercial support was available ▸ Technical leadership first approved Play and Akka ▸ Language choice was the last decision we made ▸ Viewed as a developer concern as long as it supported the JVM

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MEASURE, MEASURE, MEASURE ▸ The benefits of Scala with Play & Akka were measurable ▸ Had to support 5+ million page views per minute ▸ Zero downtime ▸ Small Scala team delivered walmart.ca in < 12 months ▸ Significantly bigger front-end team

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2014

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Language features FEATURE SCALA 2.11 JAVA SE 8 REPL ✓ x Option ✓ ✓ abbreviated syntax ✓ x lambda expressions ✓ ✓ pattern matching ✓ x

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Ecosystem SCALA 2.11 JAVA SE 8 Commercial support ✓ ✓ Tooling ? ✓ Hiring ? ✓

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MOMENTUM ▸ At the beginning of 2014 tooling was still emerging ▸ The ecosystem has been maturing steadily (e.g, OpsClarity for monitoring) ▸ Many Scala success stories since: Intel, Verizon, Samsung, UniCredit, Walmart, Barclays ▸ Scala has gone from "underdog" to "enterprise approved"

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2017

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Language features FEATURE SCALA 2.12 JAVA SE 9 REPL ✓ ✓ Option ✓ ✓ abbreviated syntax ✓ x lambda expressions ✓ ✓ pattern matching ✓ x

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The new features of Java 9 ▸ Java + REPL (jshell) ▸ New HTTP Client /w HTTP 2.0 ▸ Security improvements ▸ Improved immutable collections ▸ Reactive Streams (java.util.concurrent.Flow provides interfaces)

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OPTIONAL TO STREAM java.util.Optional.stream() List filteredList = listOfOptionals.stream() .flatMap(Optional::stream) .collect(Collectors.toList());

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A better Java is good for Scala 2.12 ("COMPILER RELEASE") ▸ Java 8 (λ, SAM, default) ▸ New backend & optimizer

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The Scala ecosystem is catching up SCALA 2.12 JAVA SE 9 SAST (HP Fortify) ✓ ✓ Fast compilation ✓ (Hydra) ✓

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Value needs CONTEXT

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Force ranked priorities DEVELOPER MANAGER EXECUTIVE Syntax 1 3 6* Ecosystem 2 2 5 Hiring 4 1 1 Support 3 4 4 Indemnity 6 2 Terms 5 3

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Force ranked priorities DEVELOPER MANAGER EXECUTIVE Syntax 1 3 6* Ecosystem 2 2 5 Hiring 4 1 1 Support 3 4 4 Indemnity 6 2 Terms 5 3

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Force ranked priorities DEVELOPER MANAGER EXECUTIVE Syntax 1 3 6* Ecosystem 2 2 5 Hiring 4 1 1 Support 3 4 4 Indemnity 6 2 Terms 5 3

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Competing on syntax alone is a race to the bottom. Scala must compete on value.

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2. OBJECTIONS

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WHY SHOULD WE CARE ABOUT OBJECTIONS?

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Cultures of total dedication look crazy from the outside, partly because the most notorious cults were homicidal. — Peter Thiel, Zero To One

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We need to understand objections so we can advise others in a rational, thoughtful way, not based on total dedication.

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EXECUTIVE OBJECTIONS ▸ "I hire smart people and get out of their way. I don't care what language they use." ▸ "What's the ROI of Scala?" ▸ "Scala has not been approved by our architecture team."

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OBJECTION HANDLING ▸ "Our use of Scala opened up hiring opportunities never before possible." ▸ "A small team of Scala developers can achieve significant productivity with very little code." ▸ "Scala is the language of choice in strategic domains."

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DEVELOPMENT MANAGER OBJECTIONS ▸ "Scala is difficult and only for the elite." ▸ "There are not enough Scala developers in the market." ▸ "Scala doesn't support [Maven, HP Fortify, etc]."

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OBJECTION HANDLING ▸ "We were able to recruit top-shelf Java talent that wants to expand their skills in functional programming by using Scala." ▸ "Scala is a JVM language, fully compatible with most Java libraries, and the ecosystem is very mature." ▸ "You can accomplish more with fewer developers." ▸ "You will unlock the full potential of your developers."

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DEVELOPER OBJECTIONS ▸ "We don't know [category theory, calculus, linear algebra, etc]." ▸ "Functional programming is terrifying!" ▸ "Scala is very unopinionated. I don't know where to start!" ▸ "I don't have time to learn a new language. I can do all of this in Java."

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OBJECTION HANDLING ▸ "You don't need [calculus, category theory, linear algebra] for business programming in Scala." ▸ "You can stretch yourself for library programming, though!" ▸ "Functional programming is strategic for your career; it's widely used in high-growth domains."

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3. VALUE

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SCALA IS ACTIVE! ▸ Significant contributions by the open-source community ▸ Significant contributions by partners ▸ Releases average 2x per year

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COMPANIES DRIVING GROWTH

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Major companies want to see other major companies already invested in the language and ecosystem.

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Apple: hovering between 50-80 open Scala positions

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Coursera's Functional Programming in Scala specialization 1. Functional Programming Principles in Scala 2. Functional Program Design in Scala 3. Parallel programming 4. Big Data Analysis with Scala and Spark 5. Functional Programming in Scala Capstone

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IBM's Big Data University

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4. FUTURE

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SCALA IS WELL POSITIONED ▸ Cloud computing ▸ Data (big data, fast data) ▸ Distributed systems ▸ Modern architecture (Domain-Driven Design, CQRS, Event Storming)

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LIBRARIES AND TOOLS LEADING THE CHARGE ▸ Kafka (Conﬂuent) ▸ Spark (Apache) ▸ Akka & Reactive Streams (Lightbend) ▸ Apache Gearpump (Intel)

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SCALA IS NOT THE NEXT JAVA ▸ Scala must continue to push functional programming forward ▸ Enterprises will continue to embrace Java given the closing gap in language features ▸ Enterprises will use Scala when and where it makes sense ▸ Scala and Java will continue to co-exist together (JVM, interop, ecosystem)

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SCALA IS THE NEXT SCALA ▸ Scala must always retain "ﬁrst-mover advantage" ▸ Scala will push all developers to new heights in exciting domains like machine learning, AI, big data, and distributed systems ▸ Scala will continue to unlock the full potential of developers

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Summary ▸ Value is always in flux ▸ Being the next something is not aspirational ▸ Java will remain a popular choice for large enterprise projects

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Scala is the optimum choice for ▸ mission-critical projects, in ▸ strategic domains, with ▸ small teams, and ▸ modular architectures