Presented at CodeMash 2014. Not everyone works for a company like Netflix -- a company where developers can bring in new technologies and languages through the front door via Freedom and Responsibility. This presentation is an update from my OSCON presentation, reflecting some additional thoughts

1. Sneaking Scala
through the
Back Door
Dianne Marsh
CodeMash 2014

2. Try the Front
Door

4. DO
Know the “Why”

5. DO
Be specific:
team, application, big
gest concerns

6. DO
Present from
audience’s point of
view

7. DON’T
Use buzzwords

8. DO
Emphasize high
value points

9. DO
Represent success
stories

10. Typesafe Customers

11. Records AWS History
Open Source
Scala
Edda
Freedom & Responsibility

12. Killer Apps
• Play for web (Scala and Java)
• Akka for concurrency
• Object-oriented + mathematical
modeling = good fit for Scala

13. Domains
• Business Intelligence
• Social apps
• Border security
• eCommerce
• Anti-spam
• Advertising

14. Companies say ...
• Rapid development and productivity
• Asynchronous stateless scalabilty
• Massive configurability for peak load
• Reduces time to market
• DSL reduces load on devs

15. DO
Anticipate objections

16. About Hiring …
• “Easy to find very good Java engineers
and excite them with new technologies”
• “Look for smart, energetic engineers
eager to learn”
• “No prior knowledge of Java, productive
2-3 weeks into project”
• “Quickly productive with Scala”
• “Reduces time to market”

18. DO
Use Scala for new
development

19. DO
Leverage existing
Java code

20. DON’T
Convert all legacy
code immediately*
*(maybe never)

21. DO
Use Scala as a Better
Java

22. DO
Use Scala for nonproduction code

23. DON’T
Refer to code written
before 2.9

24. DON’T
Make your code too
terse

25. DON’T
val nums = 3 until 1000
val somenums = nums filter
(x => (x % 3 == 0 || x % 5 ==0))
(0/:somenums)(_+_)

26. “When your Scala looks like
unhappy emoticons, you’ve gone
too far.”
-- Jason Swartz, Netflix

27. DO
Discuss developer
productivity

28. DO
Draw from team’s
experience

29. DO
Use Scala to attract
candidates

30. DO
Try ScalaTest

31. DON’T
Stress about
functional perfection

32. DO
Try Typesafe
Activator

33. DON’T
Start with Scalaz

34. DO
Learn about parallel
collections

35. DO
Leverage TypeSafe’s
support

36. DON’T
Be a language zealot

37. DO
Know when to fold

38. MAYBE
Ease into functional
with Guava

39. DO
Get feedback from
others

40. Contact Info
@dmarsh
dmarsh@netflix.com
(We are hiring)

41. Additional
References
•
•
•
•
•
•
Making a persuasive argument: http://sixminutes.dlugan.com/logos-examples-speaking/
Atomic Scala at http://atomicscala.com
Learn Scala with the Koans at http://scalakoans.org
Integrate testing with Scalatest: http://www.scalatest.org/
Case studies: http://typesafe.com/company/casestudies
Futures and promises in 2.10: https://speakerdeck.com/heathermiller/futures-and-promisesin-scala-2-dot-10