A little while ago I picked up the Early Access version of Functional Programming in Scala. While at Scala by the Bay I heard a great deal of praise for the book so I decided to finally dedicate some time to working my way through it.
This is the first in a series of posts reviewing the parts of the book as I work my way through it.
This time around I'll give a quick introduction and some thoughts on what I've read so far. In the following posts I'll get into more detail about each Section and Chapter.
The book's goal is to teach Functional Programming. Its use of Scala is treated as incidental, language features are only introduced with the minimum of detail required as needed for the lessons on FP. Prior knowledge of Scala is not required, but would be very helpful. I would suggest a solid foundation in programming as a prerequisite.
This book is definitely structured such that the exercises are an essential part of the learning process, the exercises not only reinforce the text, they provide context for many of the lessons.
Overall, I'm very impressed with the book so far, it's well written, it doesn't try to hold your hand through topics which are ancillary to the topic at hand, but it provides enough context to allow you to work through the exercises without simplifying them to the point of being useless.
I do feel like I benefited significantly from having taken Martin Odersky's Coursera course on FP before working on this, the book feels like a more in-depth follow-up on to that course.
Next time, a more in depth discussion on Part 1 - Introduction to Functional Programming.
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