What is Scala?

Scala is a modern, multi-paradigm JVM language that is most often compared to Groovy, Clojure and Erlang. Its functional language foundations and built-in Actors library make it especially attractive for concurrent computing. (Scala is an abbreviation for "scalable" hinting at its design goals).

In this day and age of multi-core processors , concurrent computing can 't not be ignored. Many of the design features of Scala 's features have been designed chosen with concurrency in mind.
Some of these , some of which may not be unfamiliar to Objective-C or WebObjects developers. Here's a quick summary:

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Why Use Scala?

Scala is inherently thread-safe.
It has concurrency that is effectively built-in to the language.

So for For WebObjects developers, Scala offers itself as a powerful, safe and easy-to-use solution for concurrent applicationscomputing. (In other words, Scala Actors can be used for problems that would have normally required threads).

Can WebObjects be Programmed In Scala?

Yes. It is very simple.
By virtue of being a JVM-language, Scala compiles to java bytecode. Hence using it with WebObjects is fairly straightforward

Furthermore, being a multi-paradigm language grants Scala easy WebObjects-interoperability.

Caveats

Legacy tool support is often cited as a weak point. The Eclipse Scala plugin has been found to be slow at times and sometimes buggy.

WebObjects In Scala

The following highlights some of the differences between Java and Scala in WebObjects:

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Scala doesn't have static variables or methods. However, Instead Scala employs the Singleton Pattern which is built into the language and is thread-safe: a class can have a Companion Object that will allow you to achieve something equivalent to static variables - but better. One of the advantages of this approach is that it is thread-safe, so you

You don't have to worry about synchronizing access to these shared mutable fields in a concurrent application.
(This is not however true when for example you have a val declared as a NSMutableArray. You will still have to synchronize when adding to or removing from this mutable field).

The following is an example of the use of a Companion Object for Talent in Scala instead of Talent static fields in Java.

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public class _Talent extends EOGenericRecord {
	public static final String ENTITY_NAME	= "Talent";
}

Scala:

object Talent extends EOGenericRecord {
	val ENTITY_NAME = "Talent"
}

This value will be accessed exactly the same way in both languages:

Talent.ENTITY_NAME

Compacted imports

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In Java:

Code Block
java java
import com.webobjects.eocontrol.EOGenericRecord; import com.webobjects.eocontrol.EORelationshipManipulation;

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Code Block
java java
public class MenuHeader extends WOComponent { public MenuHeader(WOContext aContext) { super(aContext); } }

In Scala:

Code Block
class MenuHeader(context: WOContext) extends WOComponent(context: WOContext) {

Simplified Exception Handling

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try {
     var epi: EditPageInterface = D2W.factory.editPageForNewObjectWithEntityNamed(_manipulatedEntityName, session)
     epi.setNextPage(context.page)
     nextPage = epi.asInstanceOf[WOComponent]
} catch {
     case e: IllegalArgumentException => {
            var epf: ErrorPageInterface = D2W.factory.errorPage(session)
            epf.setMessage(e.toString)
            epf.setNextPage(context.page)
            nextPage = epf.asInstanceOf[WOComponent]
     }
}

Scala Annotations vs.

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Generated Accessors

An Here's an example of accessing variables in WebObjects with the following languages:

Of course in Java, we may generate WebObjects classes with "get" methods as well in order to stick to convention.
In scala there is an additional convenience we may use to produce "get" and "set" methods in addition to the default Scala accessors - Scala Annotations.

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How to Use Scala Collections with EOF

One of To use the benefits of Scala is its very powerful, concurrency-ready collection classes - primarily List, Map and Set.
Employing these instead of NSArray and NSDictionary in WebObjects/EOF may be challenging.

But one may modify the EO templates to produce API such as:

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Scala Collections API with an NSArray or NSDictionary you simply need to add an import:

import scala.collection.JavaConversions._

After that, you may access the typical Scala collection methods directly on NSArray.  This employs a feature of Scala known as implicit conversions to automagically cast a NSArray (a Java Iterable) into a Scala Iterable while leaving the actual object unchanged.

How to Add Scala to a WO Project (in Eclipse)

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WO Scala Example

The following example is an almost 100% Scala WO app. In reality it is a mixed Java/Scala app:
All the EO logic and WO components are in Scala.
Only the Application class is remains Java.

It is based on the D2W Movies example.

Setup

1. Install the Scala eclipse IDEInstall and start the OpenBase OBMovies database.
2. Right-click on Application.java and run as a WOApplication (as usual).

EO Templates

When you create your .eogen file, be sure to make the following changes in the EOGenerator Editor:

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