ScalaBridge Curriculum

curriculum.org

Curriculum

Level One

Setup

• VSCode or IntelliJ?

Expressions, Types, and Values

• Literals
• Expressions have types and produce values
• Compound expressions
• All values are objects
• Method call syntax
  • dot notation
  • parameters

Workflow

• Starting and stopping sbt
• Wrapping code in object
• Compiling code
• Running code and using App
• Experimenting in the console
• sbt Workflow
• TODO Decide on workflow. Are we going with Visual Studio Code or IntelliJ? How do we recommend running code (using run or console)?

Names and Substitution

• Giving names to values
  • Motivation
• Using names
  • Names abstract over expressions
• The substitution model of evaluation
• Order of evaluation
• Local reasoning
• TODO Consider breaking this up into smaller sections. It’s hard to understand the theory without getting some experience, and beginners probably want to get coding before they get a big dose of theory.

Art: Computing with Images

• Doodle basics

Methods

• Motivation
• Method declaration syntax
• Method call semantics
  • In terms of substitution
• Methods generalize expressions

Structural Recursion over the Natural Numbers

• Motivation
  • Do something a variable number of times
• The natural numbers
  • Recursive definition
• Structural recursion pattern
  • Structure of code follows structure of definition
  • Solve the cases
• Reasoning about code
  • Operational reasoning: substitution
  • Denotational reasoning: what is the base case, what is the one-step recursive case?

Art: Structure in Recursion

• Fractals

Level Two

Functions

• Functions as values
• Abstracting over expressions with functions
• Parametric equations of curves
• Function composition
• Composition for parametric equations

Art: Animations

• Animations as images displayed over time instead of space
• Animation using reactors (or transducers?)
  • Structural recursion “unrolled” into a reactor
• Parametric equations as reactors

Lists

• Paths as lists of path elements
  • Local coordinate systems; bounding box and origin
• Polygons as paths
• Structural recursion over lists
• `map` for transforming lists

Custom Data

• Case classes as logical ands
• Animations using custom data
  • Simple physics. Bouncing ball.

FlatMap

• Changing length of a list to add and remove particles in a particle system
• flatMap using structural recursion
• flatMap as changing the length of a List
• Responding to mouse events
• Particle systems. Ripples. etc.

Project: Puzzle Game

• Tile matching video game

Level Three

Algebraic Data Types and Structural Recursion 1: Ands and Ors

• Modelling data in terms of ands and ors; sealed traits and final case classes
  • Non-recursive data
  • NOTE Keep examples concrete
• Structural recursion (w/o recursion!)
  • Pattern matching (familiar by now)
  • Polymorphism
    • Abstract methods
• State machines. FSM animations. E.g. exploding fireworks Or interacting FSMs? FSMs for modelling interaction?

Algebraic Data Types and Structural Recursion 2: Recursion

• The recursion rule
• Recursive data
• Transforming recursive data
• Grammars and l-systems

Functions and Generic Types

• Generic types
• Containers
• Functions to work with generic types
• kd-tree? Faster intersection tests?

Standard Library Types

• Option, Either, Map
• map, flatMap
• find, exists

Map and FlatMap

• We’ve already seen map, but review
• flatMap
• L-Systems again?

Fold

• fold as an abstraction of structural recursion

Level Four

Type Classes and Implicits

• Implicit parameters
• Implicit values

Type Classes in Cats

• Monoid
• Monad
• Applicative / Semigroupal

Probability Monad?

• Generative art w/ randomisation

Level Five

FP Architecture?

Cats Effect?

Reification and Church Encoding?