Scala, Java, Unix, MacOS tutorials (page 1)

As a brief note, to help make Scala and functional programming completely free to anyone who wants to learn, I recently created a Kickstarter project for just that: to create free Scala and functional programming training courses. See that Kickstarter page to learn more about this effort.

As of late-November, 2022, my new book, Learn Functional Programming Without Fear, is currently a best-selling book in Amazon’s Java and functional programming categories. The book is intentionally written for Java, Kotlin, and object-oriented programming (OOP) developers, and I also made the book much less expensive than other FP books. As a result, I hope it makes for a terrific 2022 Christmas/holiday gift for the Java/Kotlin/OOP computer programmer in your life!

How about a simple functional programming book written with this style:

No monads.
No monoids.
No functors.
No category theory.
Just some Java & Scala code.

Robert Martin’s tweet about writing a new simple functional programming book (in Clojure) was shared with me here, and I like his initial wording on not worrying about monads, monoids, functors, and category theory.

I say the exact same thing at the beginning of my book, Functional Programming, Simplified, and then in Learn Functional Programming Without Fear I show how to start with Java/OOP code and slowly transition to a functional programming style with Scala/FP examples. Both books focus on pragmatic functional programming source code examples, without getting lost in FP theory.

Demonstrating Scala collections methods with fruit. :) Kudos to whoever came up with this technique first.

I’m glad to report that my book, Learn Functional Programming Without Fear, is the #1 book in both the Java and Functional Programming categories, according to Amazon.com’s book-rating system. (And that doesn’t include PDF sales, which are on Gumroad.com!) Thank you all, and I hope the book is helpful!

I’m glad to report that my new FP book, Learn Functional Programming Without Fear, is a #1 New Release in the Java Computer Programming category on Amazon.

The book is written for Java, Kotlin, and other object-oriented programming (OOP) developers who want to learn FP quickly, so it’s cool to see it achieve this ranking in Amazon’s Java programming category.

Some of the books on the right side of this image are amazing, and I would never discourage anyone from reading the great ones.

But if you’re an object-oriented programming (OOP) developer who wants to start understanding functional programming (FP) over a weekend or a few nights of reading, that’s the goal of the new little book on the left: Learn Functional Programming Without Fear. It takes you from Java/OOP to functional programming in a simple, step by step learning process.

I taught Java and OOP for many years, and have used other OOP languages like Kotlin, Python, and Flutter/Dart, so I understand both OOP and FP.

(I also wrote the FP book in the middle — Functional Programming, Simplified — and it’s about three times larger than the little book on the left. I based it on most of the FP books on the right, and it goes into many details that the book on the left doesn’t go into. It’s big, but it’s still easier than reading all the books on the right.)

If you’re interested in the scala.util.Using data type for reading and writing files in Scala, I wrote about it in the Scala Cookbook, and also in my new book, Learn Functional Programming Without Fear. This image on Using comes from that FP book.

As a quick note, as you can read here on the Scala Contributors website, the scala-cli command in the process of becoming the scala command. I mentioned in my two newest books, Learn Scala 3 The Fast Way! (Book 1: The Adventure Begins) and Learn Functional Programming Without Fear that this might happen. IMHO, Scala CLI is a terrific tool that simplifies the Scala development process — and learning process — and I’m beyond glad to see this.

As this image shows, my new book, Learn Functional Programming Without Fear, goes from OOP to FP and the IO and ZIO data types in about 167 pages. The book also includes a simple 13-page “Introduction to ZIO,” with six small ZIO examples.

October, 2022: I just released my new book, Learn Functional Programming Without Fear, and my aim is to make it a terrific functional programming (FP) book for all OOP developers, especially Java and Kotlin programmers.

As a personal statement, I have no interest in pushing FP on anyone, but if you’re an OOP developer who’s interested in FP, I hope this book will be helpful. If you have some experience programming in Java, Kotlin, and OOP, I believe you’ll be able to read the whole book over a weekend, or in several nights during a week.

Why Java and Kotlin?

Why Java and Kotlin?:

• For both of them, it’s because they’re JVM-based languages (or at least they were initially).
• For Java developers, it’s because Java has incorporated several aspects of Scala over the last 12 years (including features like lambdas and immutable collections classes)
• And for Kotlin developers, it’s because Kotlin and Scala are so similar. I’ve seen people say that if you know Scala, you can learn Kotlin in a week, and vice-versa.

FP for Java, Kotlin, and OOP developers