Loveable Scala Rogues
It's 2024! Yes, I know we're well into Feburary by now... but did you make any new years resolutions?
One of my resolutions from last year, was to work up the nerve to do another Scala meet-up talk on Indigo. The last time I did one ('Functional Game Programming') was in the heady days of pre-pandemic 2020, and a lot has happened since then, both in terms of Indigo's development, and the Scala community in general.
Admittedly, it took me the whole year to get moving... but by the end of 2023, the London Scala User Group (LSUG) had kindly given me a slot in January. Even though that meant the talk would be in 2024, as far as following through on new years resolutions go, I'm still calling that a win.
The video hasn't emerged yet, but I'll post an update when it does. The slides and demos from the 'Loveable Scala Rogues' talk can be found in this repo.
It was a great night for showcasing Scala as a creative tool. The other speaker of the night was Paul Matthews producing music in Scala.js, carrying on from where he left off in his Scala Days talk 'Sounds of Structure'. The highlight of the talk was Paul's impromtu live Scala.js piano playing! Amazing stuff!
It was a Scala.js-fest with no viable business use-cases in sight. My kind of event!
As usual though, the best part of the evening was having a chance to chat to other Scala folks. I probably shouldn't say this, but I often get more out of randomly bumping into interesting people than from the talks themselves! If you can make it to one of these events in person, I'd highly recommend it.
So, what about 2024?
Well, public speaking - or really any sort of community engagement beyond an occasional tweet - isn't really my natural habitat. However, the mood in the world of Scala is a bit glum at the moment, and I feel obliged to try and raise spirits a bit, if I can.
Until the LSUG meet-up, I was quietly confident that I was having more fun with Scala and anyone else. A bold claim, I know. Now I suspect that Paul is having an even better time than me, but nonetheless, why should we be having all the fun?
My plan for this year then, is to try and be a bit more present, and to try and get people to think of Scala as more than just a tool for shovelling strings from one end of the internet to the other.
This, for example, is 130 lines of Scala 3. Did you know Scala could do that? I wonder what else it can do...
