top of page
output_image_edited.png
  • Writer's pictureFusionpact

10 Scala Libraries That you should be using: A blog around 10 different libraries in Scala.



Times are changing, technology is advancing and people are becoming more and

more impatient. Speed and efficiency are some of the most important factors that

determine whether any technological advancement will be relevant or not. Scala was

introduced in 2004 as an advancement of the language Java. Its design was aimed

to address the criticisms of the Java language. Java language with all its advantages

and uses still poses an issue when it comes to writing correct, concurrent,

fault-taulerant, and scalable applications.

There are specific frameworks and libraries in Scala which have been derived in order

to combat these issues that a user normally might face. Before learning about

specific frameworks and libraries, I highly recommend you to check out our last blog

on this topic


So without wasting any time let’s explore the libraries and frameworks of Scala.


1. Akka Concurrency Framework


There is no doubt that writing correct distributed, concurrent, fault-tolerant,

and scalable applications are difficult in Java.

Akka aims to solve this problem

by introducing the correct level of Abstraction and using the best tools and

practices.

Akka introduces Actor modern and provides a better platform to build

scalable, resilient, and responsive applications. It also provides a complete

toolkit for building highly concurrent, distributed, and resilient

message-driven applications in Java and Scala. I

If you want to improve your concurrency skills then learning Akka can be a

great idea and if you need a resource then you can use this Akka Essentials

with Scala course by Daniel CioCirlan from Udemy. It’s one of the best courses

to learn the Akka actor model with Scala and write parallel, concurrent and

fault-tolerant systems.


2. Apache Spark


Apache Spark is another popular framework written in Scala. It is very popular

in the Big Data world and can be used to analyze a huge set of data in a quick

time.

Apache Spark is an open-source cluster computing platform. It provides an

interface for programming entire clusters with implicit data parallelism and

fault tolerance.

If you are thinking to move on to Big Data or taking on some Big Data projects

then learning Spark can be a good idea. If you want to learn Spark, I highly

recommend you check out this Apache Spark with the Scala course by Frank

Kane on Udemy. It’s both a practical and hands-on course to learn Spark

online by yourself.


3. Play Framework


Just like Akka makes writing concurrent applications in Java and Scala easy,

Play Framework makes it easy to build web applications with Java and Scala.

Play is based on a lightweight, stateless, web-friendly architecture that takes

advantage of a highly concurrent and scalable Akka framework for writing a

highly scalable web application.

Play provides predictable and minimal resource consumption (CPU, memory,

threads) for highly-scalable applications.

Along with Akka, Play is two of the most popular Scala framework and if you

want to learn Play, you can use this Play Masterclass course on Udemy to start

with.


4. Scala Slick


Slick is a modern database query and access library for Scala. It allows you to

work with stored data almost as if you were using Scala collections while at

the same time giving you full control over when a database access happens

and which data is transferred.

You can write your database queries in Scala instead of SQL, thus profiting

from the static checking, compile-time safety, and compositionality of Scala.

Slick features an extensible query compiler that can generate code for

different backends.


If you want to learn Slick in 2022 and looking for good resources then you can

also check out this Kickstart SCALA — The UItimate Scala Beginner Bootcamp

course on Udemy. It touches base on all important Scala frameworks including

Slick for the database.


5. Monix


Monix is another high-performance Scala / Scala.js library for composing

asynchronous, event-based applications.

It started as a proper implementation of ReactiveX, with stronger functional

programming influences, and was designed from the ground up for

back-pressure and made to cleanly interact with Scala’s standard library,

compatible out-of-the-box with the Reactive Streams protocol.

There are not many resources to learn Monix online like I didn’t find any book

or course but their Documentation is good and you can use them to learn

Monix by yourself.


6. LIft


Lift is one of the most powerful and secure web frameworks available today. It

is a free and open-source web framework that is designed for the Scala

programming language.

It was originally created by David Pollak who was dissatisfied with certain

aspects of the Ruby on Rails framework.

Since Lift applications are written in Scala which is compatible with Java, you

can still use your favorite Java libraries and deploy them to your favorite Servlet

Container and app server.

Scala allows you to use the code you’ve already written and deployed it to the

container you’ve already configured! If you want to learn Lift in 2022 and

looking for a great resource then you can also check out this Lift MasterClass

on Udemy.


7. Lagom


This is another Scala framework for building microservices using Scala tools

and frameworks. It’s actually a platform that provides you complete toolset for

building, managing, and monitoring high-performance and non-blocking

microservices.


This framework targets Java developers but uses Scala’s powerful tools and

technologies like:

- SBT (Scala’s build system, project definitions),

- Play (REST endpoints, Guice dependency injections)

- Akka (processing)

- Cassandra (default data storage)

- Most of the technologies are hidden behind the interface so you don’t

need to worry. It’s still fairly new but also offers an alternative to Spring

Boot, Micronaut, and Quarkus for building Microservices in the Java

world.


8. Breeze


Breeze is a set of libraries for machine learning and numerical computing and

is a part of the ScalaNLP umbrella project. It is a library for numerical

processing which is modeled on Scala. It provides a set of libraries for

ScalaNLP which includes linear algebra, numerical computing, and

optimization. It aims to enable a generic, powerful yet still efficient approach

to ML.


9. DeepLearning.Scala


DeepLearning.scala is a deep learning toolkit for Scala which combines

object-oriented and functional programming constructs. It is a simple library

for creating statically typed dynamic neural networks from map/reduce and

other higher-order functions. Using this library, the writing of code is almost

the same and the only difference is that the code based on this library is

differentiable which enables such code to evolve by modifying its parameters

continuously.


10. Saddle


Saddle is a high-performance data manipulation library for Scala which

provides array-backed, indexed, one and two-dimensional data structures,

vectorized numerical calculations, automatic data alignment as well as

robustness to missing values. It is licensed under Apache License version 2.0

and is said as the easiest and most expressive way to program with structured

data on Java Virtual Machine (JVM).


If you need help with your Software engineering requirements, Please contact 'Hello@fusionpact.com'


Know more about us by visiting https://www.fusionpact.com/

13 views0 comments

Comments

Rated 0 out of 5 stars.
No ratings yet

Add a rating
bottom of page