A Scala-centric Review of the Five Finest Books on Reactive Programming

1 Like

Thank you for pointing out these resources with reviews! As someone coming from Python I have two questions:

  1. How do you recommend to get started on Reactive Programming? I’m going through Programming in Scala and Functional Programming in Scala
  2. Will code in some of these books, like Reactive Web Applications, still work even if the libraries used are in newer versions. I wanted to buy Reactive Web Applications but some of the comments indicated that the code wasn’t working anymore because of the Play version it used.
1 Like

Hi, thanks for the in-depth reviews. I should just point out that the last book, Functional Reactive Programming, is not like the others. It deals with reactive programming purely as a change propagation mechanism (in the same way that event listeners are used to propagate change). The other books all mean ‘reactive programming’ in the sense of ‘building resilient, fault-tolerant systems’ which is really quite something different and more akin to Erlang’s actor model than to change propagation.

  • In turn, I thank you, Francososa, for kindly appreciating my reviews of the finest books on Reactive Programming!

  • It just so happens that I’ve spent a fair amount of time writing Python code, and found it to be an incredibly productive language :grinning: For most of my development work, however, I use Java and Scala since these languages are easier to maintain and scale well as your code base grows.

  • Having said, I applaud your enthusiasm for wanting to embrace the Reactive Programming paradigm :sunglasses: Both of the books you mention are superb. To those two, I would definitely add a third one, which you should read along with the fine book by Martin Odersky; the book FP in Scala is awesome, though a bit advanced. The book I’m suggesting is entitled Programming Scala: Scalability = Functional Programming + Objects (O’Reilly), by Dean Wampler and Alex Payne. As I had noted in my review of that book, many many moons ago, “If you’re going to read only one book on Scala, make it this one…” and I still stand by my words :jack_o_lantern: Feel free to checkout my musings on this very subject, to get a better sense of the resources available to you on Scala programming, by visiting my post Best Scala Books

  • You’re doing a very sensible thing by becoming proficient in Scala: Keep on reading!

  • To your second question, getting the versions of libraries all lined up, and working happily with each other, can be a challenge at time, in fact, more often than one would wish for it to be the case. I suggest that you visit the website each (where readers ask questions of the author(s) regarding the pragmatics, etc., of getting the accompanying code up and running) that is dedicated to the book whose code you’re wanting to deploy and run locally. Manning Publishers do a great job, in general, of maintaining such archives, so please help benefit yourself by going through the archived threads (Q&A format). Good luck!

  • Thanks for the spot-on comment, Yawar. I can only wish that more readers would lavish the close attention (which you have clearly brought to bear) in reading my posts!

  • Yes, you are absolutely right when you point out that, “…the last book, Functional Reactive Programming, is not like the others. It deals with reactive programming purely as a change propagation mechanism (in the same way that event listeners are used to propagate change)”. I could not have said it better, so thank you, again, for clarifying.

  • I simply can’t tell you just how gratifying it is when readers (like you) bring admirable perspicacity, provide feedback, and help everyone grow their understanding of these decidedly profound (and exciting!) subjects in the process. Kudos!