Top 5 Free Courses to Learn Scala and Functional Programming in 2020 - Best of Lot

Scala is a powerful object-oriented and functional programming language which has been long touted as the successor to Java or to replace Java. Well, that didn't happen in the last few years, but Scala has undoubtedly made a lot of progress and established itself as a scalable programming language for big things. If you are a social media user and know Twitter, then let me tell you that they are using Scala, which proves that Scala has all the tools you need to build a high-performance, scalable application like Twitter, and Twitter is not the only company which is using Scala. If you look a the Scala's website, you will find that IBM, Goldman Sachs, Verizon, and SAP are using Scala to solve their problems.

If you are a Java developer or someone who wants to learn and explore Scala, then you have come to the right place. In the past, I have shared somebooks,articles, andinterview questions to learn Scala, and today, I'll share some of the free online courses to learn Scala in 2020.

You might already know that Scala is an acronym for Scalable Language, or should I say Scalable Programming language. It is actually a modern multi-paradigm programming language designed to express common programming patterns in a concise, elegant, and type-safe way.

To give you a bit of history about Scala, it is written by Martin Odersky at EPFL. Who actually incorporated the best part of predecessors like Java, C++, and other Functional programming languages like Haskell to create this.

The best thing is that similar to Java, Scala is also Statically Typed and runs on JVM. It's both Functional and Object-Oriented and fully interoperable with Java.

In short, Scala is designed to express common programming patterns in a concise, elegant, and type-safe way. Btw, if you don't mind paying money for learning something as valuable as Scala and looking for a comprehensive resource, then you should definitely check outRock the JVM! Scala and Functional Programming for Beginners  course on Udemy, one of the best courses to learn Scala and Functional Programming.

5 Free Courses to learn Scala in 2020

Some people don't like to learn from free courses and think that they are of inferior quality and just plain waste of time, but it's not always the case. I agree that paid courses generally have better quality, but most of these free courses are like that.

They are just made free from their instructor for promotional and educational purposes and may be converted into paid courses once they reach their target.

Without any further ado, here is my list of some of the best courses to learn Scala in 2020.

1. Scala Tutorial For Absolute Beginners

This is an excellent Scala course, and you would think yourself lucky if you get this free. I have a high suspicion that Instructor may convert this into a paid course very soon.

The course is well designed for beginners and doesn't expect any previous Scala knowledge of experience.

It contains more than 5.5 hours of course material, which is nicely structured into different topics like Installation, Scala Basics, Functional programming in Scala, Scala Collection, Object-Oriented programming in Scala and Scala with IntelliJ IDEA.

You might have already got an idea of what you are going to learn in this course. In short, a perfect class for beginners but hurry up to join the course before it's turned into a paid course.

2. Scala Programming Mini Boot camp For Beginner

This is another free course to learn Scala in Udemy. The course is designed for the people who want to learn Scala Programming from scratch.

Similar to the previous course, it also doesn't expect any prior knowledge with Scala. The best part of this is that you get to do a lot of programming exercises with Scala, which makes it very hands-on.

Here are some of the topics covered in this course:

Installation Guide

Variables

Values

Function

List

In short, an excellent little course to start with Scala for free. It's just one hour long, so you will not go to spend a lot of time learning Scala.

3. Stairway to Scala - Setup Instructions

This is another nice little course that will teach you how to setup Scala in Linux, in particular how to run Activator, Scala, and suitable Scala IDEs like IntelliJ IDEA or Eclipse.

Actually, this course is an introduction to other Dick Wall courses like Stairway to Scala Applied and Scala Advanced courses, and it's perfect from that perspective.

The instructor provides simples and step by step instructions with some kind of review of the configuration at the end.

The only problem is that the course is concise, so apart from the setup, you are not going to get much, but isn't that's the most challenging part of learning a new technology or programming language?

4. Scala: Getting Started

This is a proper Scala course that will not only teach you the basics of Scala but also how to write less boilerplate code and more business code.

The course starts from the ground zero and quickly familiarize you with some of the most powerful features of Scala like REPL, pattern matching, for comprehensions, recursion, immutability, interoperability, and much more.

If you're looking for something new, exciting, and, most importantly, concise, then Scala is the language for you, and this is the course to learn that.

Btw, you would need a Pluralsight membership to get access to this course, which costs around $29 per month or $299 annually (14% discount).

If you don't have Pluralsight membership, I encourage you to get one because it allows you to access their 5000+ online courses on all the latest topics like front-end and back-end development, machine learning, etc. It also includes interactive quizzes, exercises, and the most recent certification material.

It's like Netflix for Software Developers, and Since learning is an integral part of our job, Plurlasight membership is a great way to stay ahead of your competition.

They also provide a 10-day free trial without any commitment, which is a great way to not just access this course for free but also to check the quality of courses before joining Pluralsight.

5. Scala and Spark 2 - Getting Started

You might not know, but Scala is very popular in the Big Data world because of its speed and some powerful frameworks like Spark.

This course will teach you how to set up a development environment to build Scala-based Spark applications, which is the most important thing in learning a new programming language or framework.

You will learn how to download and setup Scala and Spark, IntelliJ IDEA, and Scala Plugin and how to develop a Scala application on IDEA.

In short, a perfect course if you are learning Scala to solve some problems in Big Data space.

That's all about some of the free courses to learn Scala Programming language. If you are a Java developer or someone who wants to learn Scala, these free courses can provide you a launchpad to start your beautiful journey in the Scala world. Even though these courses are free, except one on Pluralsight, which needs a membership, beware of free courses converted into paid one on Udemy. Make sure you check the price of the course before you join them.

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Thanks for reading this article so far. If you like these free Scala courses, then please share it with your friends and colleagues. If you have any questions or feedback, please drop a note.

P. S. - If you are looking for the best Scala course and don't mind paying some money, thenRock the JVM! Scala and Functional Programming for Beginners  is the perfect course to start with. This would be the right choice to learn Scala in 2020.