djspiewak

Getting Started in Scala

This is my attempt to give Scala newcomers a quick-and-easy rundown to the prerequisite steps they need to a) try Scala, and b) get a standard project up and running on their machine. I'm not going to talk about the language at all; there are plenty of better resources a google search away. This is just focused on the prerequisite tooling and machine setup. I will not be assuming you have any background in JVM languages. So if you're coming from Python, Ruby, JavaScript, Haskell, or anywhere…  I hope to present the information you need without assuming anything.

Disclaimer It has been over a decade since I was new to Scala, and when I was new to Scala, I was coming from a Java and Ruby background. This has probably caused me to unknowingly make some assumptions. Please feel free to call me out in comments/tweets!

One assumption I'm knowingly making is that you're on a Unix-like platform. Sorry, Windows users.

Getting the JVM

djspiewak

Quick Tips for Fast Code on the JVM

I was talking to a coworker recently about general techniques that almost always form the core of any effort to write very fast, down-to-the-metal hot path code on the JVM, and they pointed out that there really isn't a particularly good place to go for this information. It occurred to me that, really, I had more or less picked up all of it by word of mouth and experience, and there just aren't any good reference sources on the topic. So… here's my word of mouth.

This is by no means a comprehensive gist. It's also important to understand that the techniques that I outline in here are not 100% absolute either. Performance on the JVM is an incredibly complicated subject, and while there are rules that almost always hold true, the "almost" remains very salient. Also, for many or even most applications, there will be other techniques that I'm not mentioning which will have a greater impact. JMH, Java Flight Recorder, and a good profiler are your very best friend! Mea

oliyh

(import '[java.util Timer TimerTask])

(defn debounce
  ([f] (debounce f 1000))
  ([f timeout]
    (let [timer (Timer.)
          task (atom nil)]
      (with-meta
        (fn [& args]
          (when-let [t ^TimerTask @task]

merlinmann

Merlin's Wisdom Project

Or: “Everybody likes being given a glass of water.”

By Merlin Mann.

It's only advice for you because it had to be advice for me.