We’ve learned our lessons, made mistakes and won battles. Now, we’re here to help you and pass some wisdom and practical tips about mastering the CTO’s role.

Cloud Computing: How remote work accelerated a digital transformation

Cloud computing, remote work, digital transformation, and startups. These are precisely the things I’m going to be talking about in this article. No bolt of lightning struck me with this idea, just a talk I had the pleasure to listen to one beautiful Monday while drinking my morning coffee. You can find it here. Mat Gren, Head of Business at Scalac, in a comprehensive conversation with Pawel Gieniec, CEO at Cloud Admin (Scalac’s client for almost three years) on the technological shift that has accelerated enormously from February 2020, when COVID-19 turned the world upside down. 

So let me fill you in with the context of their discussion and take the conversation a few steps further. Let’s dive in!

What you need to know about cloud computing

Before we start, let’s first cover the basics. 

On-premise vs. Cloud

The difference between Cloud computing and on-premises software is quite significant. A company can either host everything in-house in an on-premise environment, or in a cloud environment, with a third-party provider hosting everything for you. However, you can also rent a colocation service in a company and still be on-premise. In the cloud you do not need to manage physical machines, the provider gives you the ability to operate on them (e.g. by setting up a virtual machine). After all, the important thing with Cloud is scalability on demand. You just say “I want X more machines”  and they give you X more machines. You don’t have to worry about the availability of resources.

Private Cloud vs. Public Cloud 

Nowadays, most enterprises adopt cloud computing to store their data and run applications without building and maintaining any further on-premise IT infrastructure. Enterprises have different options for implementing cloud computing. The cloud computing implementation models can be divided into two broad categories — public cloud and private cloud (actually there are two more types: hybrid and community cloud, but in this article, I will be focusing on the first two). An enterprise can opt for a private cloud to utilize computing resources exclusively through dedicated hardware, software, and network. Private cloud is primarily a solution for regulated sectors like finances, where all possibilities of access by unauthorized users must be eliminated

On the other hand, the enterprise will have to share computing resources with other subscribers if it opts for the public cloud. The public cloud service provider will make hardware, software, and support infrastructure available to the business. But the company will have to share it with others. That’s why it’s crucial that enterprises well understand the differences between a private cloud and a public cloud.

Case Study: Building a Successful Business on the Public Cloud

Pawel Gieniec used to work at Zynga as a Principal Software engineer and the CTO of Draw Something Franchise. Zynga was the first and the fastest company to prove that you could build a successful business on top of a public cloud. They were 80% of AWS back in 2010-2011, to the point that Amazon refused to sell them any more servers because it tapped Amazon out.

Zynga is a great example that you can build a successful company on top of a cloud. “I think it was CityVille where we launched and within one month went from a few thousand people playing into a hundred million people. So that is what I mean by rocket ship”. So how does the cloud work in cases like this one? The cloud might not always be the only solution, but it gives a lot of flexibility. You can scale it right away and go from a few thousand users playing a game to 100 million in 30 days. In Zynga’s case, it was all on AWS, consistently ranked first among cloud infrastructure services. 

What do cloud computing, remote work, and digital transformation have in common? 

Digital Transformation – relying on cloud infrastructures – is the new normal

According to Pawel, at the beginning of the COVID-19, the public cloud represented three percent of the IT industry. Ninety-seven percent were either on-premises data centers or private clouds. In December 2019, Andy Jesse, the CEO of AWS, announced officially that AWS was getting into the data center market with AWS outputs. There are sometimes reasons why companies can’t leverage the public cloud, so now Amazon can ship you servers to install into your data centers for you to leverage AWS services. 

However, when COVID-19 shook the world, the internet was hitting a record level of traffic. This accelerated people’s adoption of either moving out into companies dedicated to managing data centers or into the public cloud.  But at the same time, people realized that relying on on-premise data centers had a problem; they couldn’t buy masks. Why? Because the servers were not ready to handle this amount of traffic and scalability, especially quick one is definitely not the strongest point of on-premise services. There were problems with buying the right chemicals to disinfect data centers if somebody got sick.

In general, the data centers weren’t designed to handle a global pandemic. When companies built them, they thought only about natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, tornadoes. To avoid those dangers, they spread their servers across the country or countries. However, a global pandemic was something they hadn’t anticipated. In this situation, it turned out to be the very opposite of a cost-effective way to manage your data.  

Cloud computing and the future of remote work

Implementing cloud computing within an IT infrastructure makes it easier to enjoy the benefits of remote work. On-premise systems often require complicated security profiles for data to be accessed by a third party. With cloud-based data hosted externally, it is easier to give access to a third party user. This makes remote work, and any kind of outsourcing easier. 

Some cloud services that you’re definitely familiar with are Google Drive or Dropbox. These are examples of cloud storage spaces for data synchronization – files that are stored in these systems are available to the account owner from any device connected to the Internet. And you can easily share them with others. 

Employees can access documents and data that they need by using dedicated credentials (to maintain security) while still giving them the flexibility of working from wherever they want. This can be especially useful when you have multiple office locations. But what’s most relevant is that cloud computing is great for scalability and growing your businesses. You can quickly scale up or down without losing the money you otherwise would have invested in hardware or software. This is also ideal when you have a restricted physical office space. We believe that the size of your office should not determine the size of your projects.

CD vs Spotify – The future is now

The thing with cloud computing could be compared to keeping media locally on hardware such as CDs. Most of us do not listen to music on them that often anymore or do not use CDs at all. We turn on platforms such as Spotify where the resources – songs – are in the cloud, without any influence on our local, limited memory in smartphones. We also watch Netflix – without the need to carry flash drives with movies or buying additional equipment other than the computer we use for all the other things.

Finally, there’s software. No more Microsoft Office or Adobe installed locally for most of the private users. Also, very popular and trending in the small and mid-sized companies. The software subscription payment model is the most popular one these days as it lowers the cost of the software and enables frequent updates without the need to buy and install new versions. 

Remote work – from Blockchain to COVID-19

Around the world, more people than ever are working remotely. While the COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a massive migration away from the traditional workplace, the evolution of remote work began way before it. All the way from the world’s first offices to the social and technological shifts that have spawned a remote revolution. 

A short history of remote working :

  • The first personal computers hit the scene in 1975.
  • In 1979 IBM allowed five of its employees to work from home as an experiment. 
  • By 1983, roughly 2,000 IBM employees worked remotely. 
  • Also, in 1983, the internet was born. According to Flexjobs, between 2014 and 2018, the number of fully-remote US companies jumped from 26 to 170. 

Blockchain

In the meantime, in 2009, Nakamoto implemented Blockchain technology as a core component of bitcoin, the first-ever cryptocurrency. According to Pawel Gieniec, this might have had a significant impact on remote work, or rather on the media image of remote work.

I think that one of the things that have probably made a significant impact is blockchain. With teams that are building any kind of technology on top of a blockchain, they’re just naturally distributed, and I think that mentality of ‘hey you need to have you know an office or like multiple offices right where people can come in and talk’ – it’s no longer there.

Pawel Gieniec, Cloud Admin

COVID-19

What Blockchain started in the remote work department, COVID-19 has taken to the next level. But as you can see, it has only sped up a process that was already happening. Nevertheless, some people are still skeptical about remote work, especially when working with a remote team extension. In reality, these are more myths than real fears that business leaders have. For example, the myth of startups that are afraid their company culture will suffer. 

I think the startup mindset there’s a lot of you know people that hire friends of friends to help them out with one task or help them build some MVP, so I don’t think that’s any different you know whether you utilize an external company or some friend network.

Pawel Gieniec, Cloud Admin

Does every cloud have a silver lining?

While Cloud computing is not the answer to every problem, it still has a lot to offer. Sometimes people get the wrong idea of its capabilities, whereas the main obstacle often lies in strategy rather than in the cloud itself. 

According to Gartner, most leaders, when asked about their cloud strategy, admit that they don’t have any formal cloud strategy or that their plans are mostly focused on adoption/migration and implementation.

A cloud strategy is critical for every organization, regardless of where it is in its cloud journey. Moving to the cloud without a cloud strategy results in ad hoc adoption patterns, higher costs, disjointed management, security vulnerabilities, and overall dissatisfaction with cloud outcomes. Whereas a solid cloud strategy can reveal what unfulfilled potential may lie on the horizon for an organization, on top of all the technical benefits.

So if you’re thinking about investing in Cloud Solutions, get in touch with Scalac today. We can help you decide whether it’s the right solution for you. One that can match your needs and help you develop a comprehensive strategy that will cover your short-term and long-term goals. 

Stay competitive thanks to the digital transformation. 

Sources

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Big Data In Healthcare: Data Analytics‎ That Saves Lives

How Covid-19 Showed Us The Importance Of Big Data In Medicine

Big Data and modern programming technologies have been indispensable for years, affecting almost every area of our lives – from commerce, finance marketing to aviation, and crime prevention. The biggest potential of Big Data and new technologies can be seen when it comes to reducing the costs of doing business, allowing faster access to information, and improving management.

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5 factors you need to take into account before choosing the right business partner

Say that you’re going to work on custom software development. You have an amazing idea, but when it comes to execution…

Custom software development is not always a bed of roses unless you find the right software development company for your project. 

You may fall for recommendations, reviews, and ratings, but you should also trust another R factor – Research. No matter what you choose, it’s good to have a list of 5 features to consider when making up your mind. And we’ve created exactly that for you. 

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What is functional programming and why it matters for your business?

Since functional programming evolved from lambda calculus and has its roots in academia, it was initially discussed in scholarly contexts. It’s no longer the case. Even though significant technologies associated with functional programming (such as Lisp or Scala) were created at universities — FP is making its way to the general “software development discourse,” and some might say that it’s taking it by storm. 

Despite the rising interest, however, not many articles on the web seem to tackle the benefits of functional programming for business. Let’s face it: hacking a new technology in spare time is great, but there’s always a practical side to business when it comes to trying out new things and having a good reason for that. And that’s precisely what we’re about to cover in this piece. 

Here’s what functional programming is, and why does it matter for your business. 

What is functional programming in the first place?

Functional programming (FP) is a programming paradigm, a certain way of thinking about software development that’s based on a few defining principles. In the case of FP, these key principles are as follows:

  1. Binding everything in pure mathematical functions. The purpose is to look for simple, repeatable actions that can be abstracted out into a function and then built upon to create more complex features.
  2. Immutable, unchangeable data — which means that you should rather create new data structures, not altering the ones that are already in place. For example, if you want to modify data in an array, you need to add a new array with the updated value instead of making changes to the “original” one. 
  3. Declarative code. The main focus here is on what to solve, rather than how to do it. 
  4. Statelessness. Functional programs should perform each and every task as it was for the very first time, without any knowledge of what happened (or not) earlier in their execution. 
  5. Recursion. There is no “for” or “while” loop in functional languages, iteration is implemented through recursion. Basically, recursive functions repeatedly call themselves, until the base case is reached. 

Functional programming vs OOP (Object Oriented Programming)

Speaking of programming paradigms, you might already be familiar with another one that’s still more popular: object-oriented programming (OOP). This doesn’t mean, however, that FP is not gaining any traction. Both functional programming and object-oriented programming are unique in their own ways. 

Here’s functional programming vs OOP at a glance to help you grasp the differences:

XFunctional programmingObject-oriented programming
DataImmutableMutable
Programming modelDeclarative Imperative
FocusWhat you’re doingHow you’re doing
Parallel programmingSupports parallel programmingNot suitable for parallel programming
Side effectsIts functions have no side effectsIts methods can produce side effects 
IterationRecursion“Loop” concept
Application stateFlows through pure functionsIs usually shared and colocated with methods in objects 
Key elements of the codeVariables and functions are the main elements of the codeObjects and methods are the key elements

What about programming languages, then?  

Pure functional programming languages, such as Haskell, are specially designed to serve this particular paradigm and accept only pure functions. Interestingly, you don’t need to use a pure functional programming language to bring FP principles to your code. 

There are a few languages that still make it easy to write “pure programs”, such as Scala, Clojure or OCaml.  More popular programming languages like JavaScript or Python can also support FP one way or the other – either natively or with the right library.

At Scalac, we’re big advocates of functional programming and, which shouldn’t come as a surprise, we mainly use Scala for this purpose.  There are at least a few good reasons for that:

  • The language is extremely versatile and offers advanced features, clean code, and both functional and object-oriented programming in an open-source, practical package that leverages Java’s environment. 
  • Speaking of — Scala has emerged as one of the most powerful Java alternatives. Actually, one of the reasons why Scala was created in the first place was to address various concerns developers had with Java. Nowadays, Scala provides interoperability and compatibility with Java, allowing the developers to keep their Java libraries, and leverage the advantages of JVM. 
  • When comparing it to Python, on the other hand, Scala’s maintenance is simply much faster. Despite providing the fluency and flexibility of a dynamic language like Python, it’s still a strongly statically typed language. The performance also tends to be much more efficient, especially in a multi-threaded environment.  
  • Because of its functional aspects and flexibility, Scala is also useful for expressive code and parallelism. Basically, with a functional approach and no mutation, there are no race conditions and parallelism gets a lot more straightforward. Then, lambda expressions are also helpful when communicating some aspects of parallelism. 

But, the question remains:

Why should you use functional programming (and Scala, for that matter)?

For some reason, this programming paradigm still seems complex for many. When taking a closer look at the benefits of functional programming and languages associated with it, you might have a different impression. 

To start with, adopting functional programming helps you break down every application into smaller, simpler pieces that are both more reliable and easier to understand. It’s mostly because functional code tends to be more concise, predictable, and easier to test. How come? 

  • Since pure functions don’t change any states and depend only on the input given, they are much easier to grasp. 
  • When there’s less code, there are also fewer bugs — not to mention that actual testing and debugging gets much easier with immutable data and pure functions that take only arguments and produce output. 
  • With the outputs depending only on the arguments passed to the function, the software can also behave more “predictably”. 
  • FP adopts Lazy Evaluation which avoids repeated evaluation (basically, the value is evaluated and stored only when it is needed) and supports other Lazy Functional Constructs like Lazy Lists, Lazy Maps, etc. 
  • Functional programming also means efficient parallel coding — there’s no mutable state and no state-change issues, which supports easy reusability and testability. 
  • Speaking of efficiency, functional programs consist of independent units that can run concurrently and can be more efficient as a result. 

Since Scala supports functional programming, these benefits apply to it as well. In fact, the combination of features in Scala makes it possible to write programs that are concise, elegant, and much easier to debug & maintain. 

As a result, increasingly more companies switch to both functional programming and Scala, including well-known tech giants like Twitter or LinkedIn. Interestingly, Scala also made it to the top 10 languages that developers want to learn these days. 

The rising interest from both companies and developers are contributing to the recent growth of functional programming and the adoption of Scala as the main language for many applications — also in a business setting. 

What do functional programming & Scala mean for your business, though?

There’s no doubt that knowing the principles of functional programming can broaden one’s horizons and introduce new ways of thinking about software development. But what’s in it for the companies? 

To start with, code quality. When it comes to functional programming — very often, you can do more with less code. It’s much more concise, which essentially means fewer bugs, and shorter time (and/or fewer people) to actually write it. Plus, it’s a lot easier to grasp what the code does, explain it, and even onboard new team members who can almost immediately join the project and start working on it. In the process, Time to Market often gets shorter. 

What’s also worth mentioning is that the interest in functional programming and languages that bring its principles to life stems from being tired of limitations posed by other programming paradigms and technologies. As already mentioned, Scala as a modern language has plenty of useful features that you won’t find in Python and Java. Even implementing it can be a big savings cost of the bottom line. 

What’s more, there are already some business cases that both functional programming and Scala have been applied to successfully. Health care, accounting, banking, advertising — are just a few exemplary industries.

For the time being, functional programming seems to work best with apps aimed at concurrency or parallelism, carrying out mathematical computation, and whenever there are many different operations performed on the same data set. Scala is a good fit if you have a lot of data or complex data structures and algorithms, but FP languages are also often used for artificial intelligence applications like machine learning, language processing, or modelling of speech and vision. Pretty impressive, right?

With the rising interest and so many benefits of functional programming, how come it’s not yet as widespread as it should be? 

At the end of the day, businesses rather choose the technology based on the skills of their team or the availability of developers, who are more likely to represent more traditional approaches to software development. That’s precisely why it matters not only to educate developers about FP but also give them tools to apply it in practice. 

For now, “the movement” is all bottom-up: it’s starting from developers who are tired of being limited by other programming languages, become interested in functional programming, and then teach their colleagues about it. 

As these developers start creating libraries and frameworks that solve specific business problems across multiple areas (such as backend development, analytics, distributed development) with the use of functional programming — eventually decision-makers will also get excited about FP. And, the more companies are interested in functional programming, the more developers skilled at it they want to hire. It’s a chain reaction from there. 

To facilitate the shift to functional programming, drop some of the jargon around FP and lower the barriers to entry, there are initiatives and projects like ZIO — a library for asynchronous and concurrent programming based on pure functional programming. Taking advantage of it is said to help in solving common business problems, and ensuring higher success rates of projects. This, in turn, brings more attention to functional programming, in the business world as well. 

What’s also great about ZIO is that it’s inclusive for all sorts of developers. It’s still fairly new, but it’s expected to be a great venture in the long run, mostly due to all the open-source support it gets. It might be difficult to take advantage of ZIO when developing enterprise-level software just yet, but more and more companies are already testing it in production for smaller projects. And that’s only one of the reasons why the future of functional programming definitely is bright. 

Dig into functional programming yourself 

Increasingly more companies are prepared to train development teams on how to use FP and solve business problems with functional programming, including Scalac. 

Switching to functional programming can be done whenever there’s a new module to implement and thus, can be done gradually. Start small, and see how big of a difference the main aspects of functional programming can make to your business. As per usual, we’re here to help. 

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Duolingo Case Study: Why They Chose Scala?

One of the biggest language learning apps in the world, Duolingo is serving hundreds of millions of users every single day. Most of the app’s backend was written in Python, yet the tech team has decided to rewrite one of Duolingo’s core features in Scala.

With this article, you’re going to find out:

Want to learn more? Let’s dive in:

Duolingo before Scala

If you’ve never learned a language with Duolingo, here’s a quick summary of how it works:

  • Why duolingo chose Scala?
Source : https://blog.duolingo.com/rewriting-duolingos-engine-in-scala/

As you can see, the app’s users learn through short lessons consisting of different types of exercises. 

Here comes the question: which exercises, and in what order, should the users see? 

Duolingo’s Session Generator is the module that makes these decisions for the users creating adequate educational sequences. 

This core feature has been around since the very beginning of Duolingo. The startup, as we already know, was gaining popularity pretty fast, thus growing rapidly.The hectic pace was both a blessing and a curse. Duolingo’s tech team had to act fast and didn’t always have the time and resources to optimize all the processes accordingly. And this led to significant technical debt. 

For instance, the Session Generator’s architecture featured many hard dependencies. This means that if any of those failed, the whole module would stop working. In other words, many features of the module affected the performance of other features. As you can imagine, this makes potential bugs much more likely. 

Because of that, the Duolingo team decided to redesign the module’s architecture and eventually rewrite the Session Generator. Here’s how they decided on the language:

Moving to Scala

As in many companies, Duolingo’s backend was originally written in Python, one of the world’s most popular programming languages. It’s a common choice, as it’s easy to understand for developers with different kinds of experience. 

There are, however, some challenges that come with Python, one of them being the speed. 

This language tends to be visibly slower than Java or C, while Java is also considered rather slow and verbose. What’s more, Python’s dynamic typing can be the cause of many runtime bugs. 

To avoid these issues, the Duolingo team decided to move their product to Scala. Contrary to Python, Scala is a statically-typed language. It’s widely used in other complex big data apps like for example Kafka that was developed by LinkedIn and is used to handle real-time data feeds. Not surprisingly, it turned out to be a good fit for Duolingo’s Session Generator as well. The team claims that they were looking for a more modern programming language. They also think that Scala is very mature in the back end so it fits the bill.

Implementing Scala in Duolingo

JVM and Functional Programming 

There was no need to reinvent the wheel. As Scala is built on the Java Virtual Machine, developers could use existing Java libraries. One of the biggest changes was the shift towards functional programming. Andre Kenji Horie, Duolingo’s senior software engineer, is a big fan of this solution. According to him, around 99% of Duolingo’s codebase is functional. He claims that it makes things much easier to debug, much easier to maintain.

Many developers have the impression that Scala seems to have learned from the mistakes of other languages. Here’s how the Duolingo team perceives it:

  • More concise – While Java is known for being elaborate and rather slow, Scala does a lot to make the language less verbose. Thanks to it being a functional language, the developers can use simple one-liners in many cases too.
  • Less prone to bugs – As we’ve already mentioned, Scala’s static typic makes it easier to catch bugs with a compiler. Less verbosity makes the work smoother, too. Contrary to Python, Scala is much less prone to runtime bugs.
  • Saves a lot of time – Andre Kenji Horie has stressed that writing code in Scala is significantly faster than programming in Java. In the same amount of time he’d use for coding alone, he can also write unit tests for Scala. This makes the developers more confident about the quality of their work.
  • Easier maintenance – When compared to Python, the development speed is similar, yet Scala’s maintenance is much faster. Andre mentioned that after moving to Scala he suspected that refactoring would take him around an hour, like in Python. To his surprise, it only took around one minute.
  • Efficient performance – As you already know, Scala is running on a Java Virtual Machine and is doing very well in a multi-threaded environment. In other words, it means that it can do a lot of things at once. Scala’s efficiency also means that Duolingo can use 10 times fewer servers to handle the same amount of traffic, which again is a huge saving. 

Of course, there were some challenges along the way. The team has described the two main pain points:

  • Java integrations – Some of the integrations were not compatible with certain Scala-specific features.
  • Documentation – As Scala is a rather new language, finding some of the libraries required extra effort. 

Scala learning curve

What’s more, many people claim that Scala’s learning curve is quite steep. In this case, improving readability and optimizing the product’s maintenance process was far more important, and here’s where Scala is doing really well. When asked about the learning curve, software engineers from Duolingo say that it was actually a lot easier than anticipated. It proves that even though the language is new, learning it is not an obstacle. 

To sum up, the team is happy with Scala despite the tiny downsides. Andre Kenji Horie has said in a Software Engineer Daily podcast that There are some small things here and there in the language but […] it is not a big deal. He claims that pain points didn’t come with Scala itself but were more related to changing from one language to another. For instance, when they had a function that was used in Python but not in Scala, they needed to find a workaround. 

Note that this is only related to the onboarding phases. In general, the team appreciates how Scala offers a lot of useful features that are not present in Python or Java. 

Duolingo and Scala: the results

The service turned out to be much more robust after the rewrite. It’s easiest to see in the speed test results. The latency before the rewrite was 750 milliseconds, while after implementing Scala it went down to as little as 14 milliseconds. Quite impressive, isn’t it?

To top it all off, the rewrite proved to be significantly more stable. With the old infrastructure, the average downtime was around 2 hours every quarter. After switching to Scala, the first few months boasted zero downtime. Obviously, it probably won’t last forever, yet it still looks very promising.

The team claims that Scala meets their needs as it’s very mature in the back end and, as we’ve mentioned before, makes a great fit for big data applications. 

Last but not least, the shift to Scala has improved morale among developers. They feel more confident deploying the code, as they don’t have to fear they’ll break the entire app. The improving testing suite that is used in Scala makes their work much more pleasant. Considering unit tests are prepared by developers who test individual code before integration, issues can be found at an early stage. Thanks to that, they can be resolved without impacting the other parts of the code. 

Scala as the right choice for your business

Does it sound like Scala could be the right fit for your product? If you’d like to learn more about implementing Scala in other global companies, you’re sure to enjoy this Zalando case study. Of course, if you have any questions about implementing Scala,we’re always happy to help, as we’re of the biggest Scala development companies. Feel free to get in touch via live chat on the website!

The article is based on the following sources:

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6 COMPANIES PIONEERING THE USE OF DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS

A growing number of big companies have swapped cumbersome monolithic applications for distributed systems. And in virtually all cases, they’ve boosted customer satisfaction, reduced costs, and increased revenues.

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Zalando case study: why they chose Scala?

As Zalando kept growing to become an ecommerce giant, at some point they have decided to switch from Java to Scala. Although it’s a major move that required a lot of effort, they managed to do it in less than three months.

Want to see how they did it? Wondering if this might be the right choice for your company? Keep reading to find out more!

Java vs. Scala – the main differences

We’ll start with a quick introduction so you can see clearly what are the main differences between Java and Scala: 

  • Amount of code – This is the main difference you’ll surely notice at first sight. Scala is a drastically more concise language than Java. The number of lines is visibly reduced, thanks to the use of type inference, function passing and several other factors. 
  • Parallelism – Scala is a much better fit for parallel programming, as it’s designed to express patterns in a very concise manner. 
  • Objects and functions – While Scala is both functional and object-oriented (we’ll cover that in more detail later), you need to keep in mind that functions are acting as objects in Java. Scala treats every function as a variable, which means than one Scala function can accept another. This is one of the most impressive features of this language. 
  • Syntax – This is one of the reasons while Scala’s learning curve can be so steep. Although concise, the syntax seems a little off-putting at first, which is why some people consider Java more readable. This might be a problem for these who want to get started with Scala. 

Why Zalando chose Scala

Alright, so why exactly did Zalando decide to look for a Java alternative, then? Here’s why they thought Scala might be a better choice for some of their needs:

  • The company had years of previous experience with the Java Virtual Machine – Javier Arrieta, one of the Senior Software Engineers at Zalando, had a whopping 18 years of previous experience working with JVM. This solution is fast, efficient and quite convenient for debugging as well. Java worked fine, but there was one problem: the amount of code needed to ensure stability. The team thought that it would also be nice to use lambdas for transforming collections.
  • Scala works well with Java libraries and frameworks – This made the transition from Java to Scala much more convenient. The developers didn’t have to let go of all the libraries they’ve already been used to. They could also stick to Play, which is used for both Java and Scala development. This framework is intuitive, extensive and trustworthy, as it’s backed by Lightbend (formerly Typesafe).
  • It combines functional programming and object-oriented programming – Why choose one when you can have both? Scala presents a hybrid approach, as it combines both object-oriented (OOP) and functional programming. The possibility to choose one or the other paradigm, depending on the situation, makes Scala a really flexible choice. 
  • Scala is great for parallelization – This is one of the main advantages of functional programming. What’s more, Scala comes with a Futures API, which makes parallel programming much smoother. You can use this solution instead of sticking to traditional methods like locks, callbacks and threads. 

What kinds of challenges come with Scala

Although the Zalando team is still positive that moving to Scala was the best choice they could make, there are some challenges they had to face:

  • Compilation times – Advanced languages features in Scala make the compilation time longer. Luckily, there’s a solution to this issue. Zalando team turned to incremental compilation. This trick helped them solve the problem. 
  • Language problems – The same thing in Scala can be written in many different ways, which is both a blessing and a curse. There is no canonical style guide available and the code can get unreadable quite. When implementing Scala, it definitely pays off to implement some sort of in-house style guide. This will help you achieve consistency. 
  • Possible operator overloading – In Scala, the operator can have a different implementation depending on the argument. This case of polymorphism can lead to confusing constructions. 
  • Learning curve – As we’ve already mentioned in the Java vs. Scala comparison, Scala’s syntax can seem highly complicated to those who want to learn it. It’s a hybrid language, which is a double-edged sword: it makes work easier, but you need to consider more aspects to understand how it works. 

How Zalando introduced Scala

The team has to admit that Scala’s learning curve is pretty steep. All developers had to be introduced not only to a new language, but also new frameworks, new build tool and, above all, functional programming concepts. 

So, how do you tackle such a complex project? Of course, you need to start by providing high-quality educational materials. The team at Zalando picked Scala courses from Coursera, which turned out to be a great fit for their needs. 

The developers proceeded to learn through prototypes and greenfield projects. They were creating systems for a new environment, without integrating them with other systems yet. Another method used to introduce Scala was the layered approach. All these measures helped the team learn new skills in a controlled environment. 

Internal workshops worked quite well, as many senior Java developers were willing to learn Scala. Actually, all-Scala developers are quite a rare phenomenon – most of them have transitioned from another programming language. When it comes to exact numbers, 40% of engineers and Zalando expressed interest in learning Scala. 

In Zalando’s Dublin office, most services and data pipelines are written in Scala. The Irish team is using that language to develop the Customer Data Platform.

How the developers at Zalando adapted to Scala

It is also worth mentioning that there were two main types of Scala adoption in the company: 

  • Using Scala as Java – For developers who already had years of experience working with Java, it was almost certain to happen. You could say that they’re using Scala as an improved version of Java, with all the lambdas, pattern matching and case classes involved. 
  • Functional programming nerds – The second group, on the other hand, really got into Scala and all the exciting new opportunities that come with functional programming. They treat Scala like an entirely new programming language and are more open to trying new things. 

It’s good to keep this pattern in mind, as it’s quite likely that introducing Scala will take a similar turn in your company. Some developers may prefer to stick to their own habits and only adopt certain features of the new languages, while some may be particularly excited about implementing a new solution.

What Zalando loves about Scala

Now that Zalando has been working with Scala for quite some time, they can definitely list some of their favorite things about it:

  • Types – The team at Zalando absolutely loves types. They help them understand what kind of value they’re working with, whether it’s the customer’s password, their name, or maybe their email address. They prefer using either tagged types or value classes to manage this data.
  • Referential transparency – It’s about the substitution model. Referential transparent computation allows the team to substitute a function with parameters, which makes work so much easier. It’s also incredibly helpful for testing a program.
  • Using monads for function composition – One of the main advantages of Scala is how it allows composing functions to create more complex ones. Monads one of the most popular ways to make that happen. Thanks to them, many operations can run sequentially.

Key takeaways

As you can see, the Zalando team is very happy with using Scala instead of Java. They love to explore the wide possibilities that come with the hybrid of object-oriented and functional programming. Why not have a closer look at their process and implement a similar solution in your company? Who knows, maybe Scala is the alternative you were looking for. The case of Zalando proves that it can be successfully implemented in just a couple of weeks. 

The article is based on the following sources:

https://www.infoq.com/presentations/scalability-zalando/ 
https://jobs.zalando.com/en/tech/blog/why-we-do-scala/?gh_src=4n3gxh1 
https://www.slideshare.net/ZalandoTech/zalando-tech-from-java-to-scala-in-less-than-three-months 

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Why does Scala win against Kotlin? Senior engineer’s opinion

This article is based on a story of one of our developers, ex Java now Scala developer, who decided to follow the Scala path because he found writing in Scala and being part of a Scala Development Company extremely developing and interesting.

Scala programming is definitely one of the main topics that come to mind when it comes to Scalac (the name itself is actually Scala + C = Scala compiler and we’re a Scala development company in the very core). As you can probably tell from the name of our brand, before we developed teams like Data Engineers, DevOps, UX/UI and Frontend, our company was powered by Scala experts – even now, we are one of the biggest Scala development company in the world, and a Gold Lightbend Partner. 

Some time ago I started wondering; what is it about Scala that developers prefer over other languages? Why do we need Scala?  This post was originally meant to be focusing on Scala vs Kotlin comparison – so we interviewed our senior engineer (who was previously a Java engineer) just to find out, that there is a way better story to tell – about how Scala makes Developers enjoy their work again. Let me take you on a journey to discover the ultimate truth! 

On the first day, there was Java 

Java was developed in the early 1990s and it changed the whole IT world. In the early 90s, the idea of extending the power of network computing to the activities of everyday life was something totally abstract. Today, with technology being such a great part of our daily lives, we take it for granted. As a matter of fact, Java is still, after all these years, an engine that runs many applications – from games to business solutions.

The real question is: is Java enough?


The slow evolution of the Java programming language has led to quite a few inventions in the JVM programming languages. As a result, there are over 50 JVM languages! They were all created to fill in the gaps in existing versions of Java by developers who didn’t settle on “good enough”. 

In theory, Java can be used for everything –  a mobile app, a server, an e-commerce platform. In practice – iif you want a mobile app you’re better off with Kotlin, and if anything regarding your solution is more complex and requires a big amount of data Scala is a way to go.

On the second day, there was Kotlin

Sorry to have to put it this way but Kotlin is just Java in a nicer package – still an object-oriented language but fresher and funkier. It’s so similar that it doesn’t require a different mindset. Java developers are able to quickly switch to Kotlin and program smoothly in it. You can also call Java code from Kotlin and vice versa without any hassle. 

Moreover, apart from that, it has several other advantages, such as the way the collection library is built, support for nulls, and coroutines. Kotlin supports functional constructions, but it is still closer to Java deprived of its old-fashioned legacy than to Scala. It gives Java programmers freshness and constructions that are not available in Java, as well as brevity in expressing thoughts through code.

Kotlin’s domain in contrast to Scala is mobile. It can be used for both server and client (mobile) development – Frontend and Backend. Android supports Kotlin out of the box. You can also use Scala for that purpose but it is not as hassle-free as Kotlin.

Scala vs Kotlin popularity
Scala vs Kotlin popularity in USA
Source: Google Trends

I chose Scala as a junior because in a way it can be easy to start with.
You don’t have to jump straight into object-oriented programming (it can be introduced in a procedural paradigm at first), but at the same time, it has all the necessary concepts to learn it. You can move over to functional programming without having to switch to other functional languages. Scala also shares C-like familiarities so it’s easy to learn C-style languages too. 

Patryk Kirszenstein,
Junior Scala Developer 

and on the third day… there was Scala

As mentioned before, some Java developers knew that they couldn’t quite settle for what they had. They wanted more. They were looking for an alternative, where nicer syntax could be used. 

Scala as a programming language with functional facilities requires a different mindset and much more knowledge than Java or Kotlin because of the fact that, among other things, code is written differently.

In Scala, you can write functional and object-oriented code. It has a very rich syntax that enables you to write code in many ways. This is also why people who are not involved with Scala may have the impression that it’s over-complicated. This is because, in the case of Java and Kotlin, programmers know what to expect. With languages like Scala – you go big or you go home. 

Systems written in strongly typed languages like Scala are easier to maintain in the long term. Also, a big business-related advantage is that it’s a JVM compiled language so you can use all the existing Java libraries. Did you know that Scala, although not so popular as Java, it’s also used by world-wide enterprises which seems to see its advantages like Zalando, LinkedIn, Twitter, Foursquare, Netflix, Tumblr, Walmart, Paypal, Intel and Samsung?.


What are the business reasons to use Scala?

If you’re working with complex environments, applications, analytics it’s way more efficient than Java or Kotlin. Scala is used to implement Spark (the leading platform for distributed data processing)  as well as to define the computations themselves, so it’s really data-scientist-friendly. Not to mention that Scala is a great language for domains like Machine Learning and Blockchain which are extremely important in today’s business, and will become even more significant in the future. 

Scala is pure 

Challenges may be the key to why Scala has such a big community – especially for a seemingly niche language – with over 95 919 questions asked solely about Scala on StackOverflow (not to mention related topics).

Scala is a powerful language with highly-advantageous features and flexible syntax. But, it is quite difficult for developers to get a grip on this JVM programming language. However, with time, it becomes really natural and straightforward. What Scala represents, with its functional approach, is passion-driven work leading to pure self-development. To fall in love with it, you need to first start writing in it, and then dig a little deeper. Scratching the surface may only give you the wrong idea. 

Dorian Sarnowski Scala Engineer Developer Expert

“While many languages share some of Scala’s features, few share so many of them, making Scala unique in ease of development.

Dorian Sarnowski,
Senior Scala developer 

As a Scala development company – we use Scala for a variety of reasons, which mostly come down to reducing development time and reducing the number of bugs in code. While many languages share some of Scala’s features, few share so many of them, making Scala unique in ease of development.

Scala – simply beautiful.

Scala really encourages switching from mutable data structures to immutable, and from regular methods to pure functions (without getting crazy about it like Haskell).  It’s simply beautiful. It provides a good balance between the conciseness of a language, extensibility, and performance. Keeping to JVM’s paradigm promise of “write once, run anywhere”, and combining it with functional coding, Scala lets you build the best of both worlds in your code.

It’s functional

I don’t think there is any programmer who wouldn’t find Functional Programming interesting, but sometimes they just let it go because they have other priorities at work. Fortunately, some jobs actually let you do exactly that for a living and that’s quite amazing. 

Scala is a very appealing choice for developers who are looking to strike a balance between writing pure code and writing solid code quickly – by building upon existing solutions and libraries when available. That  – combined with interoperability with the Java ecosystem and the JVM – makes Scala look very promising.

Scala is more influenced by functional programming languages like Haskell than Kotlin. It encourages the use of functional coding along with some additional features such as pattern matching and currying. Not only that,  but functional programming is also more substantial in the Scala environment. 

“Scala lets you build the best of both worlds in your code.

It’s love

Scala is functional and type-safe, but you encounter the difficulties progressively (you can still write Java-like code), so at no point will you get bored. It’s more likely you will feel like you are always on an intellectual adrenaline rush. You could poetically compare it to the feeling of falling in love for the first time. I think that’s truly one of the reasons Scala is definitely worth the time you will need to learn it. It will change the way you think forever. 

Share some love for Scala in the comments and feel free to ask any questions.

Check out other Scala-related articles on our blog:

How to write a (completely lock-free) concurrent LRU Cache with ZIO STM
How to set up Bazel build tool for your Scala project
How to write a command-line application with ZIO
Type classes in Scala
Your first microservices using Scala and Lagom

Scale fast with Scalac – Scala development company ready to solve all your challenges.

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A few business lessons on remote work that crisis can teach us

It is inevitable that COVID-19 will disturb not only health but also the economy.

Companies need to lock their businesses down and big decisions are being put aside while waiting for better times to come. However, putting the brakes on some projects may not be the way to go, since no one knows when the dust will settle down. 

The coronavirus outbreak is just a recent example, but any crisis is a potential threat to a project if the concerned parties are not prepared for persevering.

The crisis doesn’t have to fully disturb work, though. While we can’t forget about what’s happening all around us, we’re still able to accomplish tasks and take on new projects with the help of a few adjustments.

One of them is remote work. 

Today, we’ll talk a bit more about remote working and why it might save your business during these turbulent times, even if you assume otherwise.

What are some issues with running a business in challenging times?

KPMG have identified a few common contractual issues for businesses in troubling times, which you can see below. 

Source: KPMG

While all of the aforementioned issues could have created problems a few years ago, they can be easily solved via online, remote management of the projects today.

How does remote working deal with these issues?

Well, it can probably solve them all. For many businesses, a lack of work on site definitely leads to problems with contracts, but it does not apply to technology.

While there is still plenty of uncertainty going forward, the work must go on and work still needs to be done. Even those businesses that are on complete lockdown need to handle the situation somehow. The environment is challenging, but companies must do their best to run their business as usual. The same should apply to internal and external collaborations. 

Being prepared to cater for this new environment is not a choice any longer, especially when nobody knows when the turbulent times will end and business will return to normal. 

If work progresses as usual, except for being managed and reported remotely, then there’s no reason to worry about signing, terminating or breaching contracts. 

Today shows why this is, but should not be, a challenge for many. 

Those who had already adapted to remote working don’t necessarily win today, but more importantly they don’t lose. 

Work can’t stop

It’s understandable that the crisis may dampen the mood for launching, investing or spending resources. Of course, some businesses that are under financial pressure might face problems when it comes to upholding contracts and continuing work. However, if nothing except for the method of working and the economical lockdown changes, then putting technological projects on hold is very often not necessary. Actually, in certain cases, doing so could even be considered irresponsible. 

Any projects that were launched before the outbreak are likely to be continued now, so those that were scheduled to launch and are ready to go shouldn’t be put on hold either. 

What’s more, and what might be a tad controversial: this may be a really good time to work on certain projects while the World is slowing down a bit, especially if nothing really changes except for the type of work. This is where the following question arises:  how to make it work?

Finding the right partner to run a project is crucial. Nearly everyone is working remotely nowadays, but not many software houses know how to properly sort out their remote workflows. 

Change your approach

Facing the crisis isn’t a perfect situation for either side of a project and the atmosphere can be tense, it’s true. What’s most important is to stay safe, but also to be proactive, productive and keen to find workaround ways to deliver. 

Many businesses facing an external crisis need to quickly adjust to remote working.

Regardless of whether or not they have previously been remote working evangelists, they’re often now being thrown headfirst into a brand new situation that they need to handle.

There’s a hurtful opinion that remote working means a lack of productivity and missing deadlines. The problem doesn’t lie with remote working itself, but rather with business partners who don’t live up to expectations and put more groups off the idea as a result.

It’s a test for collaboration

While external collaboration (with software houses or agencies) is important, the crisis situation also puts internal collaboration to the test. This is another reason why it’s better to persevere on projects with those for whom remote working is their bread and butter. They may share their best practices and help you survive the transition to remote working, while maintaining the project stays up and running. 

It won’t happen overnight. First of all, it takes a lot of work and understanding.

Long story short: being surrounded by business partners who know the nature of remote working can save a whole project.

Keep growing, regardless

In turbulent times, you need to find a way of running your projects and also evaluating any potential risks. Of course you may be concerned about how the whole situation could affect your business, but to survive and be successful you need to grow and, eventually, scale.

If your team is not ready for this, your first thought might be to hire more people to accomplish some tasks. But how can you safely hire someone and conduct appropriate onboarding now, when you have been thrown in at the deep end in terms of working remotely and trying to sort out project management?

Well, you should think about contracting a software development company that is able to complete the project for you. That way, it can be done without you hiring extra people, or spending time on the searching, screening and onboarding process that go with it. Not to mention the additional never-ending costs that you would eventually have to cover.

With contractors, you don’t have such strings attached: if all goes well, you can scale the collaboration. If not, it’s fine to  part ways. What’s more, contracting can be much cheaper than hiring someone full-time, since you will hand a whole project over instead of providing benefits and business expenses for a particular employee. 

Contractors can therefore help you grow and adjust your activities to any current situation,despite reducing costs. So why not jump on a call and talk about it?

To wrap-up

The outbreak may stop some business for a while, and it will probably have an impact on operations. Does this mean that you need to stop too? Not if you don’t have a valid reason to do so, no. Running a business as usual may be one step too far, but if your team has the capabilities to work remotely then make the most of it. If not, provide them with the necessary tools to make remote working easier. In terms of external collaboration, choose those companies that know how to organize their work remotely and have already been doing so for quite a while. 

There are a lot of things to worry about right now, but remote working shouldn’t be one of them. Not with us, anyway.

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If you like this article, check out also:

Working remotely – Simple guide for people who want to start but are afraid

Scale fast with Scalac – Scala development company ready to solve all your challenges.

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