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Chris Longo
I just finished the assignment for week 1. It's definitely not an introductory course for Scala as others have pointed out. The emphasis is strictly on teaching functional programming. Odersky is a pretty good teacher but leans heavily on mathematical concepts in the lecture examples and assignments so make sure you have a strong math background to get the most out of it.
The first week's assignment was challenging and the automated grading system ensures all corner cases are tested. I learned more from doing the assignment than from the lectures, to be honest. I got dinged for using a mutable variable in one of my implementations and learning do rethink the problem with immutability in mind was the most valuable lesson I learned from this week's assignment.
All told, well worth the time.
Update: I have a long history with this class at this point. I had to drop halfway through the first time it was offered due to being tremendously busy at work. I picked it up again this run and made it through.
It's a very hard course, especially if you do not have a background in functional programming. There were times where I just did not get what Odersky was talking about and had to watch the lessons over and go on the forums, etc. until it clicked. The workload can be demanding if you're just getting into functional programming.
As I originally stated, you won't learn much fundamental Scala in this course but if you put the time and work in you will understand the proper way to use Scala as a functional language.
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I just finished the assignment for week 1. It's definitely not an introductory course for Scala as others have pointed out. The emphasis is strictly on teaching functional programming. Odersky is a pretty good teacher but leans heavily on mathematical concepts in the lecture examples and assignments so make sure you have a strong math background to get the most out of it.
The first week's assignment was challenging and the automated grading system ensures all corner cases are tested. I learned more from doing the assignment than from the lectures, to be honest. I got dinged for using a mutable variable in one of my implementations and learning do rethink the problem with immutability in mind was the most valuable lesson I learned from this week's assignment.
All told, well worth the time.
Update: I have a long history with this class at this point. I had to drop halfway through the first time it was offered due to being tremendously busy at work. I picked it up again this run and made it through.
It's a very hard course, especially if you do not have a background in functional programming. There were times where I just did not get what Odersky was talking about and had to watch the lessons over and go on the forums, etc. until it clicked. The workload can be demanding if you're just getting into functional programming.
As I originally stated, you won't learn much fundamental Scala in this course but if you put the time and work in you will understand the proper way to use Scala as a functional language.
See Questions On Quora
Continue reading...
