Best Scala Books: For Beginners & Experienced

Scala is a most popular language of big data it may replace java soon. To learn it, we will introduce some scala books in this blog. In today’s scenario, scala is a hot language in software development. A huge range of start-ups is using scala application development.

Since spark is developed, scala language became unofficial of big data software development. Scala has many unique features that make it more flexible to use. It is even less verbose than Java. It offers special development environment, as it is both functional & multi-threaded as well.

At whatever stage of scala programming you’re, there is so much to learn about Scala. To satisfy that thirst for knowledge you will surely need good books. This blog will definitely help you to select best scala books for learning.

It includes scala books for beginners and helps to learn advanced scala programs to become scala expert. Some popular books of scala are programming in scala, scala for the impatient, scala design pattern etc are discussed below.

List of Best Scala books on Programming

1. Programming in Scala

The book “Programming in Scala” is one of the best Scala books to learn Scala. This book will help more to those who prior know Java. As this book is written by Martin Odersky (Scala creator), so it covers every facet of the language surely.

We can use this book as a reference, as it contains all fundamentals of Scala concepts and features.

In addition, this book also contains similarities and differences between Scala and Java. That makes this book more valuable for experienced Java programmers. Hence this is a fundamental book that every scala Programmer must read.

2. Scala for the Impatient

According to its name, this book is, particularly for impatient readers. Those who want to learn the fundamentals, to become productive quickly, must go for this book. It offers step by step learning the basics of the scala programming language. Afterwards, it covers plenty of its concepts.

In addition, this book is written for experienced Java, C++, or C# programmers, those are new to scala. It also includes key scala concepts and techniques, we need to know in order to start scala coding. This book is meant to get you started quickly. Apparently, it is more of a cheat sheet than a book.

3. Functional Programming in Scala

The most difficult part while learning Scala is functional programming. Functional programming concepts like monads, lambdas, carrying etc. are very challenging. At first scala syntax is also very concise and less readable but later on, it will become easier.

In the first part, it focuses more on what functional programming is. Moreover, it applies the principles to scala. The major aspect in scala is its functional nature.

Hence, it’s great to focus on these concepts as a core part of scala learning. Regardless of scala, this book a great resource for learning functional programming.

4. Scala in Action

The book “Scala in Action” is for advance learners. This book is not meant for beginners. Those who already know coding in scala must go for this book. This book includes much information on ‘How to’ approach.

Moreover, this book includes many examples and many days to day tasks to teach in a better way. It also teaches the use of java and scala open source libraries.

Includes, debugging and test-driven development with scala. This book is not easy to go but once we understood this, it’s worth reading.

5. Scala High-Performance Programming

This book is a complete package of tips, tricks to create performative applications. More often it is for people, who are interested in performance metrics & custom hacks. Those people who know scala, just need to optimize their application, refer this book.

It contains tips for code optimization, but many techniques cover system-level changes. Such as distributed systems, caching platforms, and libraries for improving CPU/memory usage.

This book is not for intermediate-level developers. It is one of the important books as it contains real-world use cases in order to guide the content. If we need a lesson to analyze and track the performance of scala application, should read this.

It covers how to work with stream processing, how to write high-performance code, and much more.

6. Learning Scala: Practical Functional Programming for the JVM

This is a great book for scala beginners. The only condition to learn from it is reader must know programming already. This book includes step by step learning while knowing how things work in JVM.

JVM refers to Java virtual machine. In this books, we will learn through many exercises. It includes tons of diagrams and visuals along the way.

Beginners who aren’t sure about the purpose of scala or how all the features work, visuals can be handy for them. It lacks examples of scala project. But, in the last part, we will get comfortable working with existing libraries.

Afterwards, we can easily write our own classes. Also, we will be able to build clean scala code that’s easy to maintain and extend.

7. Scala Cookbook: Recipes for Object-Oriented and Functional Programming

The Book “ Scala Cookbook” is best for existing scala programmers. Those who want to know more best practices, as building a scala application, must read this book. This book includes recipes can be very simple or relatively complex.

There are a lot of solutions for concurrency, APIs, Scala REPL, SQL+NoSQL databases and so much more. There are lots of possible solutions for every problem in scala. This book helps cover some good ground, it also presents solid opinion on ‘good’ scala.

8. Scala Design Patterns

This book “Scala Design Patterns” is full of design patterns. Those are based on the object-oriented world with the unique features of scala. It is totally based on functional nature. It is much a theory-based book with so much reading.

But as you work through, source code and exercise samples help to learn many design patterns. So, if you want to explore those ideas in depth then this is the book to read.

9. Scala in Depth

The Book “ Scala in Depth” is for existing programmers. Even a scala beginner or a scala expert can learn from this book. It contains exercises and explanations for all of the scala’s common features. If you want to learn how to build applications with scala methods, refer this book.

Moreover, it teaches the concept of functional programming. This book is full of basic OO features and contains concurrent programming. Finally, this book is the great example to learn scala efficiently.

10. Building a Recommendation Engine with Scala

For implementations of recommendation engines, scala is becoming a key language. This book teaches us from scratch, that how to build one. Each scala developer would find valuable learning this.

There are ample of Practical examples to introduce concepts. As a result, this book could also serve as a useful way to ‘break-in’ to that world.

Conclusion

Although, to learn anything, there is no single best way. As we already know Practice makes men perfect.

As a beginner, just start with programming in Scala. I am sure at least one book here will definitely help you improve. Some of this book we can download free from any browser in a PDF and e-book form.

However, keep checking list may some book catch your attention to learn in a better way.