The Guardian is replacing its Java stack comprised of Spring, Apache Velocity and Hibernate to Scala, its Web Platform Development Team Lead Graham Tackley told InfoQ. The Content API is the first part of the paper’s website being migrated to the new language.
The Guardian team began using Scala by writing integration tests for the Content API. “After about four weeks of writing just the tests in Scala, we got fed up of having to write the main code in Java, and decided to convert the whole lot to Scala,” Tackley said.
The team starting the migration from Java to Scala by using Scala plugin for Maven to build a mixed Java and Scala environments. This enabled the team to keep working on the project without having to take the API down while it was migrated. “So we could convert on a class-by-class basis from Java to Scala, which worked far better than we ever imagined: it really did just work,” Tackley told InfoQ.
Tackley said that the team uses the Jetbrains IntelliJ IDEA 10 IDE for development. “The Scala plugin is pretty good but not perfect.” Tackley also discussed the fun of learning Scala, and the readability issues he and his team face in both Scala and Java. If you’re interested in Scala, the article is well worth reading in full.
Scala is a programming language designed for scalability. It runs in the Java Virtual Machine, but has its own syntax. It’s in use at companies such as Twiter and Foursquare.
For more on Scala see :
Scala creator Martin Odersky’s presentation Free and Open Source Development European Meeting
