Scala is a programming language that is steadily growing in terms of popularity and a number of companies using it in their digital products. Such tech giants as Netflix, Twitter, and Linkedin implement Scala, and many smaller companies are following their example. But with the number of skilled developers still pretty low, finding the right tech talent can be a real headache which scares many business owners away from this programming language. In this post, we will talk about the main technical advantages of Scala development and the reasons why it is key to your company’s success.
Java compatibility
Since its creation in 1995, Java quickly became one of the most popular programming languages in the world and currently holds second place in the number of coders using it in their work. Scala was released eight years later and was heavily inspired by Java. It runs in JVM and has an almost identical syntax. This means that Scala developers have access to hundreds of existing Java libraries and frameworks that also can be applied to their field of work. Also, you can combine these two languages during the development process without any complications. This ensures more flexibility, enhanced productivity, and overall better performance of an app. Finally, since Scala engineers are somewhat hard to find and hire due to the high demand, you can easily train Java developers on your payroll to switch to a very similar coding language.
Language of big data
In recent years, big data really exploded and demand for programming languages able to process and analyze massive amounts of information without harming the app’s functionality and performance naturally grew. Scala is the great choice for those tasks due to its support of functional programming, incredibly high scalability, excellent performance, concise code, and Java interoperability. Big companies have already realized that hiring Scala developers is the key to successful work with big data, this is one of the main reasons for the growing demand for this type of IT professionals. As your app becomes more and more complex, sooner or later, you will need to hire Scala coders too, so don’t be late for this trend.
Reactive systems
Another area where Scala really shines is the development process of reactive systems. This is a general term for systems that are designed to be responsive, resilient, and elastic for processing the unpredictable demands of the modern world. Besides functional programming that we mentioned earlier, Scala has an actor-based concurrency model that allows building an app using independent and reactive parts that can communicate with each other and process multiple requests in real-time. Also, reactive libraries, such as Akka, Receive Streams, and Play framework, are really helpful too. All of this makes Scala a go-to option for creating a modern digital product with great reactivity.
Usage in machine learning
Machine learning is one of the biggest trends in IT in recent years, and Scala is a great programming language to use for this purpose too. Of course, the main advantage is the functional programming capabilities that allow it to create a code that is pretty easy to maintain, scale, and reason about. Also, Scala’s strong type system helps to catch small errors better and improve the overall quality of code. Finally, Scala has numerous libraries and frameworks for machine learning purposes, such as Apache Spark, Breeze, and Deeplearning4j. All of this makes this programming language a great option for building an AI-based application that can learn and improve with time.
Scala in Microservices
One of the main trends in building complex applications in recent years is a microservices architecture. Basically, instead of a monolith app, developers create numerous small services that are more manageable and can be scaled, deployed, and changed independently. It makes the final product more flexible, resilient, and easily maintained. Also, the usage of microservices allows us to build every different part with different technologies and programming languages. Scala is a great choice for this type of architecture because of its syntax, functional programming paradigm, and ability to work with JVM and Java databases. Also, there are two Scala frameworks that were specifically designed for microservices architecture, Akka and Play.
Functional programming
We already talked several times about functional programming and numerous areas of Scala development that it helps to improve significantly. But what is it exactly? In simple words, this programming paradigm treats computing as an evaluation process of mathematical functions and avoids changing data structures. It allows you to write more concise code that is easier to understand and maintain. Also, this approach helps to make code more scalable, reusable, and parallelizable, which is ideal for processing big amounts of information and working with machine learning technologies. Scala allows IT professionals to work with both object-oriented and functional approaches, which is pretty unique and helps to make the development process more effective.
Object-oriented nature
As we already mentioned, Scala is a hybrid programming language and supports object-oriented computing, which was popularized by Java. Generally speaking, Scala treats everything as an object with its own properties and traits. Also, with the help of inheritance, software engineers can easily create new classes with properties and methods of already existing classes. Basically, this helps to make code more reusable, maintainable, and expressive. A lot of IT professionals choose Java as their go-to language because of these advantages, but the ability to implement a hybrid approach brings it to a whole new level.
Final thoughts
Technical requirements for modern digital products change all the time and become more and more complex. Scala allows you to create an app with the ability to easily process big data, implement machine learning technologies, use microservice architecture, and work with reactive systems. Not many programming languages can do all of this, and the hybrid structure of Scala, which combines both functional and object-oriented computing can really revolutionize your business. Yes, there are still not enough Scala experts to meet an always-growing demand, but resources and time spent on recruiting will definitely pay off.
