Hi, my name is Alvin Alexander, and I’m the author of this book. I want to tell you a little about myself so I can share my qualifications, and also let you know why I wrote this book.
In terms of qualifications, I’ve written the following books on Scala, which have sold tens of thousands of copies:
- Scala Cookbook, 1st Edition (700+ pages)
- Scala Cookbook, 2nd Edition (700+ pages, written for Scala 3)
- Functional Programming, Simplified (700+ pages)
- An introductory book for Scala 2, titled Hello, Scala
- Hello, Scala became the basis for the official Scala Book
- When Scala 3 came out, I co-wrote the Scala 3 Book for the official Scala website
- Learn Functional Programming Without Fear (a new, smaller book on FP, written for OOP developers)
All of those books are rated 4.5 stars and higher, and Functional Programming, Simplified has been one of the highest-rated, best-selling books on functional programming since its release.
In addition to these books I also write about Scala on my website, alvinalexander.com, which receives millions of page views every year, and I occasionally post small Scala tips on my Twitter account.
I like to think that my niche in the writing world is in making complicated topics easier to understand. That’s always been my goal, and I’m glad to say that’s what people usually tell me when they send me a “Thanks!” message.
Why I wrote this book
Having written all those books, you might wonder why I’m writing another book about Scala. The first part of my answer is that I want to:
- Write a book about Scala 3 for people who are new to Scala.
- Write it as a series of “one topic, short lessons” that are as simple as they can be.
- Keep it under 250 pages. (Having written three books over 700 pages long, I know those are hard to write, and can be intimidating to read.)
And finally, the biggest reason:
- To help you retain what you read!
To do that I’ve created:
- A Github repository that includes most of the code shown, along with a few small projects that are good for beginners.
- Online exercises for the lessons.
You’ll learn more about all of this as you go through the book, so for now I’ll leave it at that.
Thanks for reading, and I hope this is helpful!
All the best,
Alvin Alexander
Longmont, Colorado
September 18, 2022
