The Functional Programming in Scala Course Is Out!
Over the last year, the JetBrains Education and Research team has been working on a new Scala course for JetBrains Academy. This new course assumes prior knowledge of Scala basics and focuses on the functional programming concepts that Scala can simplify rather than language syntax. To get going with the course, you’ll need to install the JetBrains Academy plugin and the IntelliJ Scala Plugin. You can do this from your IntelliJ IDEA Welcome screen or via Settings | Plugins.
Once you’ve installed both plugins, you’ll need to restart IntelliJ IDEA. Upon restarting the IDE, you’ll now see that the Learn tab has been added to the Welcome screen. Click on it, then click Get Started, and from the list of courses in JetBrains Marketplace, choose the “Functional Programming in Scala” course and click on Start.
The course takes you through basic functional programming concepts, like functions as first-class citizens, pattern matching, immutability by default, and how using expressions instead of statements changes the way you code.
The topics are broken down into a number of more straightforward ones, including an exercise for each one and another more complex exercise at the end so you can really test what you’ve learned. You’ll find extensive descriptions and links to additional materials, such as videos and blog posts, in many of the sections.
In the near future, the Education and Research team plans to expand the course with more advanced topics. Stay tuned!
