Dean Wampler Presents: Why Scala?

Abstract:

When I started learning about Functional Programming, I picked Scala as a learning tool. Scala seduced me with its concise, yet powerful syntax and its combination of FP and its improvements to Java's object model. In this talk, I'll show you some of Scala's powerful features that improve productivity and code quality, eliminate common sources of over-engineering in typical "enterprise" applications, and provide tools for concurrency.
Even if you don't use Scala in your daily work, the ideas you'll learn will improve the code you write in any language.

Bio:
I'm the author of several books:

-- "Programming Scala", a practical book for experienced software developers that introduces this important, modern programming language (coauthor: Alex Payne).
-- "Functional Programming for Java Developers", a succinct introduction for Java developers to the concepts of functional programming, where I motivate its importance and demonstrate how to use FP concepts in Java programs.
-- "Programming Hive", a comprehensive guide to Hive, the SQL tool for Hadoop (coauthors: Ed Capriolo and Jason Rutherglen).
-- "Clean Code", I contributed the chapter on "clean systems" to this book by Robert Martin.

I have a 20-year-old passion for writing software, ranging from embedded systems to Internet and enterprise applications. You can find out more about me at these web sites:

-- http://deanwampler.com: My personal home page.
-- http://polyglotprogramming.com: Presentations, white papers, etc.
-- http://thinkbiganalytics.com: I'm a Principal Consultant in "Big Data" systems.
-- http://blog.polyglotprogramming.com: My blog.

My "off-line" interests include photography, hiking, skiing, and other mountain sports, cooking, and reading, including books that aren't about software!