Until now, most discussions of Scala have been too abstract, academic, and complex for working programmers. Now, Scala for the Impatient concisely shows developers what Scala can do and how to do it.



Using Scala, you can write, read, debug, and test programs more easily, as well as leverage the full power of parallelism and concurrency. Moreover, since Scala runs on the JVM, it can access any Java library and integrate with any Java program. So for Java and other object programmers, Scala represents the best of both worlds.



In this book, Cay S. Horstmann does for Scala what he did for Java in his global best-seller Core Java™: He offers a rapid, code-based introduction that’s completely practical. Horstmann introduces each Scala concept and technique in “blog-sized” chunks you can quickly master and apply. Hands-on activities guide you through well-defined stages of competency, from basic to expert. Coverage includes

Getting started quickly with Scala’s interpreter, syntax, tools, and unique idioms
Mastering core language features: functions, arrays, maps, tuples, classes, objects, packages, imports, inheritance, files, regular expressions, and more
Empowering and extending classes with traits and services
Implementing new operators for Domain-Specific Languages and other purposes
Working with higher-order functions, collections, and advanced types
Leveraging Scala’s powerful pattern matching and case classes
Creating Scala annotations and interoperating with Java annotations
Reading, analyzing, creating, and writing XML
Applying advanced “power tools”: Actors, Implicits, and Delimited Continuations

Scala is rapidly reaching a tipping point that will reshape the experience of programming. This book will help current object programmers build on their existing skills, allowing them to immediately construct useful applications as they gradually master breakthrough functional programming techniques.