Teaching Scala @ TCD ... back to the roots

2012-11-10 Software-Engineering Conferences Scala Functional-Programming

20 years ago I used to teach object-oriented programming (based on Eiffel) at my old university in Germany.

This week I got the chance to experience a deja-vu, because earlier this year I did run into Glenn Strong who is teaching Functional Programming in TCD in Dublin and we started to develop the idea that it would be useful to add a Scala module to his Haskell based lecture.

The main idea was that the module could complement the lecture by exposing the students to a second functional programming language and at the same time highlight why at the current point in time Scala is the programming language of choice when large corporations decide to adopt a more functional programming paradigm (Gilt being one of them).

In that context the module focused mainly on how well Scala co-exists with Java. The two real-world scenarios that got implemented in the lab exercises was to rewrite a piece of Java in Scala and to integrate Scala with existing Java source code. Feel free to clone the repo and play with it yourself. My stuff is in the roland.tritsch folder.