Welsh Noel, Gurnell Dave. Advanced Scala with Cats

Underscore, 2017. — 329 p.Advanced Scala with Cats is aimed at experienced Scala developers who want to take the next step in engineering robust and scalable systems. The course teaches five key abstractions of monoids, functors, monads, monad transformers, and applicative functors, using the implementations in the Cats library. Through a series of projects we show you how these abstractions can be used to engineer solutions to practical problems in data analysis, data validation, input parsing, error handling, and more.The main goal of this course is to teach system architecture and design using the techniques of modern functional programming. This means designing systems as small composable units, expressing constraints and interactions via the type system, and using composition to guide the construction of large systems in a way that maintains the original architectural vision.The course also serves as an introduction to the Cats library. We use abstractions from Cats, and we explain the structure of Cats so you can use it without fear in your own code base. The broad ideas are not specific to Cats, but Cats provides an excellent implementation that is beneficial to learn in its own right.
PrerequisitesTo benefit from this course you should have about a year’s experience with Scala, or equivalent experience with a functional language such as Haskell, O’Caml, or Lisp.
Learning OutcomesUnderstand how to express abstractions using type classes
Learn the key type classes of: Functor, Monoid, Applicative, and Monad.
Understand how to apply type classes to solve practical problems across a variety of domains.TimetableThe course runs over three days, or six weeks if delivered online.Day one covers:background: algebraic data types and type classes;
monoids;
functors; and
monads.Day two covers:applicative functors;
monad transformers; and
foldable and traverse.Day three consists of case studies. Case studies are chosen by discussion between the teacher and students.If time is short we can drop the third day, though the longer course is a much bettter experience.The online course follows a similar pattern but meets one per week for two hours, and students have to complete homework outside the meeting. The extra time allows us to cover more material but this only works if the students have sufficient time to complete the homework. For the majority of people we recommend the onsite course, but if you’re sure students can schedule four hours per week for coursework the online course is a good option.
Written MaterialThere are two books that accompany Advanced Scala: the Advanced Scala textbook which contains all the course material, exercises, and case studies. There is also a supplemental book called Essential Interpreters that covers the construction of interpreters in three styles: classic untyped interpreters, monadic interpreters, and composable interpreters using the free monad. Interpreters are the primal functional programming pattern. To quote Haskell luminary Don Stewart “almost all designs fall into the ‘compiler’ or ‘interpreter’ pattern, using a model of the data and functions on that data”.Attendees of any Advanced Scala training course receive a complementary copy of both books. The books are also available for purchase as standalone products.
Table of Contents - Advanced ScalaAnatomy of a Type Class
The Type Class
Type Class Instances
Interfaces
Exercise: Printable Library
Take Home Points
Meet Cats
Importing Type Classes
Importing Default Instances
Importing Interface Syntax
Defining Custom Instances
Exercise: Cat Show
Take Home Points
Example: Eq
Equality, Liberty, and Fraternity
Comparing Ints
Comparing Options
Comparing Custom Types
Exercise: Equality, Liberty, and Felinity
Take Home PointsMonoids and Semigroups
Definition of a Monoid
Definition of a Semigroup
Exercise: The Truth About Monoids
Exercise: All Set for Monoids
Monoids in Cats
The Monoid Type Class
Obtaining Instances
Default Instances
Monoid Syntax
Exercise: Adding All The Things
Controlling Instance Selection
Type Class Variance
Identically Typed Instances
Applications of Monoids
Big Data
Distributed Systems
Monoids in the SmallFunctors
Examples of Functors
More Examples of Functors
Definition of a Functor
Aside: Higher Kinds and Type Constructors
Functors in Cats
The Functor Type Class
Functor Syntax
Instances for Custom Types
Exercise: Branching out with Functors
Contravariant and Invariant Functors
Contravariant functors and the contramap method
Invariant functors and the imap method
What’s With the Name?
Contravariant and Invariant in Cats
Contravariant in CatsMonads
What is a Monad?
Monad Definition and Laws
Exercise: Getting Func-y
Monads in Cats
The Monad Type Class
Default Instances
Monad Syntax
The Identity Monad
Exercise: Monadic Secret Identities
Either and Xor
Left and Right Bias
Creating Xors
Transforming Xors
Fail-Fast Error Handling
Representing Errors
Swapping Control Flow
Exercise: What is Best?
The Eval Monad
Eager, lazy, memoized, oh my!
Eval’s models of evaluation
Eval as a Monad
Trampolining and Eval.defer
Exercise: Safer Folding using Eval
The Writer Monad
Creating and Unpacking Writers
Composing and Transforming Writers
Exercise: Show Your Working
The Reader Monad
Creating and Unpacking Readers
Composing Readers
Exercise: Hacking on Readers
When to Use Readers?
The State Monad
Creating and Unpacking State
Composing and Transforming State
Exercise: Post-Order Calculator
Defining Custom Monads
Exercise: Branching out Further with MonadsMonad Transformers
A Transformative Example
Monad Transformers in Cats
The Monad Transformer Classes
Building Monad Stacks
Constructing and Unpacking Instances
Usage Patterns
Default Instances
Exercise: Monads: Transform and Roll OutCartesians and Applicatives
Cartesian
Joining Two Contexts
Joining Three or More Contexts
Cartesian Builder Syntax
Fancy Functors and Cartesian Builder Syntax
Cartesian Applied to Different Types
Cartesian Applied to Future
Cartesian Applied to List
Cartesian Applied to Xor
Cartesian Applied to Monads
Validated
Creating Instances of Validated
Combining Instances of Validated
Methods of Validated
Exercise: Form Validation
Apply and Applicative
The Hierarchy of Sequencing Type ClassesFoldable and Traverse
Foldable
Folds and Folding
Exercise: Reflecting on Folds
Exercise: Scaf-fold-ing other methods
Foldable in Cats
Traverse
Traversing with Futures
Traversing with Applicatives
Traverse in Cats
Unapply, traverseU, and sequenceUCase Study: Pygmy Hadoop
Parallelizing map and fold
Implementing foldMap
Parallelising foldMap
Futures
Partitioning Sequences
Parallel foldMap
Monadic foldMap
Exercise: Everything is Monadic
Exercise: Seeing is Believing
Parallel Monadic foldMap
foldMap in the Real World
Case Study: Data Validation
Sketching the Library Structure
The Check Datatype
Basic Combinators
Transforming Data
Predicates
Checks
Kleislis
Conclusions
Case Study: Commutative Replicated Data Types
Eventual Consistency
The GCounter
Simple Counters
GCounters
Exercise: GCounter Implementation
Generalisation
Implementation
Exercises
Abstracting GCounter to a Type ClassCase Study: Parser CombinatorsEssential InterpretersUntyped Interpreters
Abstract syntax trees
Folding over ASTs
Monadic Interpreters
The Free Monad
Natural Transformations
Composing Interpreters with Coproducts