Select J-Fall 2016 Speaker David Stibbe – Scala.js & why I like it J-Fall 2016 Speaker David Stibbe – Scala.js & why I like it
Are you a big fan of Scala, or just a developer who has no problems working with it? Do you have to do frontend development, but do you (rightfully so) believe JavaScript is an abomination? Imagine: a frontend and backend written in the same language, while they still function as seperate server and client-side applications! Do not fear! Scala.js is here! Scala.js enables you to use scala for all your frontend needs without the distaste of JavaScript (or at least as little as possible). Scala.js has been on the rise the past few years. It is a framework that allows you to develop functionally with Scala, after which the code will be transpiled to JavaScript. It, however, offers the necessary mechanisms to link to and from JavaScript, enabling you to use the enormous amount of currently existing JavaScript libraries (such as Angular, JQuery, D3, etc. ), saving you from having to rewrite those. In this talk I will introduce the listener to the world of Scala.js and tell about how, I, a backend developer fell in love with it. We will review its short history and why it was created in the first place. This will be followed by demonstrating how to use Scala.js in practice. This will be done from the JavaScript perspective, as well as from a Scala.js perspective. This involves writing our own code as well as using existing libraries through Scala.js facades. We will also give a short introduction in the debugging aspect as well as how we can resolve dependencies on existing JavaScript libraries. Finally we shall discuss where Scala.js now stands and what the future might look like.
