September, 2008

Greetings Software Enthusiasts!

For this meeting, Zemian would like to present "Introduction to Scala", a talk session geared toward Java developers. The introduction will let the audience get a feel for what Scala programing is like and explore some coding styles. Zemian expects the audience to have a basic knowledge of Java programming. The session will start with few basic Scala syntaxes and types that have close resemblance to Java. Code examples are provided throughout the presentation to give the audience a feel for how Scala code looks and its logic flow. The main focus will remain on "introduction" with few selected Scala features as topics. Instead of presenting heavy empirical theories and algorithms, Zemian will use simple and practical code samples. In addition, the session will show how the Scala language itself is extendable by developers using the user library. We will also take a look at how Scala can provide seamless remedies to some shortcomings of Java built-in libraries!

I. What and Why Scala (5 mins)
  a. Yes, JVM can fit another language
  b. Top features:
    - Strong/static type
    - Type Inference
    - Speed!
    - Closure
    - Functional Support on Built-In library
    - Active community
II. The Feel of Scala (20 mins)
  a. HelloWorld
  b. Basic Types
  c. Class, Instances, and References
  d. Trait - Thick Interface
  e. Singleton objects
III. Riding on Java built-in Library (20 mins)
  a. Seamless access to java library
  b. Making java.util.Date and java.io.File more usable
  c. Using Java Collection vs Scala collection
IV. Scala in Real World ( 15 mins)
  a. Sweet and other library projects
  b. Database access - Sweet's JdbcHelper
  c. XML processing - Scala supports it on language level!

BIO

My name is Zemian Deng, and I am a Systems Architect at Connextions Inc, a technology outsourcing company. My technical specialty is in enterprise web applications development using SpringMVC, Hibernate, and various other libraries and tools. I also have a strong knowledge of Java SOA and using MuleESB.

Besides my daily work, I've a special interest in Java scripting that has led me into the discovery of Scala a year ago. I started learning Scala and found the language is not only good for scripting, but also useful to build larger applications because it's static typed and its speed is almost as same as Java! I found the Scala language to be very expressive, concise, and easier to use than Java. Scala is stable and has enough built-in libraries in its API for me to start a web framework named Sweet. Sweet is hosted on http://code.google.com/p/sweetscala. In writing the framework, I learned about a few areas of Scala language that are particular useful and interesting, and I would like to share this with the community.

Meeting Place Information

Time: September 25, 2008 from 6pm to 9pm
Location: DeVry University - Rm 126
Street: 4000 Millennia Blvd
City/Town: Orlando

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