7 Best Free Scala and Functional Programming Courses for Beginners to Learn Online in 2024
My favorite free online courses, certifications, and tutorials to learn Scala and Functional programming in 2024 from Udemy, Coursera, Pluralsight, and Educative.
Hello guys, if you want to learn Scala and Functional Programming in 2024 and looking for the best resources then you have come to the right place. Earlier, I have shared the best Scala courses and in this article, I am going to share the best free courses to learn Scala and Functional Programming from popular websites like Udemy, Coursera, Educative, etc.
You may know that Scala is a powerful object-oriented and functional programming language which has been long touted as the successor to Java or going to replace Java in the future.
Well, that didn’t happen in the last few years, but Scala has undoubtedly made a lot of progress and established itself as a scalable programming language for big things.
If you are a social media user and know Twitter, then let me tell you that they are using Scala, which proves that Scala has all the tools you need to build a high-performance, scalable application like Twitter, and Twitter is not the only company that is using Scala. If you look at Scala’s website, you will find that IBM, Goldman Sachs, Verizon, and SAP are using Scala to solve their problems.
If you are a Java developer or someone who wants to learn and explore Scala, then I must congratulate you, it's a great decision. In the past, I have shared the best Scala courses, books, articles, and interview questions to learn Scala, and today, I’ll share some of the free online courses to learn Scala in 2024.
You might already know that Scala is an acronym for Scalable Language, or should I say Scalable Programming language. It is actually a modern multi-paradigm programming language designed to express common programming patterns in a concise, elegant, and type-safe way.
Scala is also the programming language of many important frameworks, including Apache Spark, Kafka, and Akka. It provides the core infrastructure for sites such as Twitter, Tumblr, and also Coursera.
To give you a bit of history about Scala, it is written by Martin Odersky at EPFL. Who actually incorporated the best part of predecessors like Java, C++, and other Functional programming languages like Haskell to create this.
The best thing is that similar to Java, Scala is also Statically Typed and runs on JVM. It’s both Functional and Object-Oriented and fully interoperable with Java.
In short, Scala is designed to express common programming patterns in a concise, elegant, and type-safe way.
By the way, if you don’t mind paying money for learning something as valuable as Scala and looking for a comprehensive resource, then you should definitely check out Rock the JVM! Scala and Functional Programming for Beginners course on Udemy, one of the best courses to learn Scala and Functional Programming.
7 Best Free Courses to learn Scala and Functional Programming in 2024
Some people don’t like to learn from free courses and think that they are of inferior quality and just plain waste of time, but it’s not always the case. I agree that paid courses generally have better quality, but most of these free courses are like that.
They are just made free from their instructor for promotional and educational purposes and may be converted into paid courses once they reach their target.
Without any further ado, here is my list of some of the best courses to learn Scala in 2024.
1. Functional Programming Principles in Scala [FREE]
This is one of the best online courses to learn Scala and Functional Programing from Coursera. This course is created by none other than Martin Oderskey, the creator of Scala himself, and it offered by EPFL.
In this course, you will learn the elements of the functional programming style and learn how to apply them usefully in your daily programming tasks, such as modeling business domains or implementing business logic.
This course is also part of Functional Programming Principles in Scala Specialization which is a collection of the best Scala courses with programming exercises and projects. Completing all the courses, projects, and assessments will give you a certificate.
In this course, you will also develop a solid foundation for reasoning about functional programs, by touching upon proofs of invariants and the tracing of execution symbolically.
The course is hands-on; most units introduce short programs that serve as illustrations of important concepts and invite you to play with them, modifying and improving them.
Here is the link to join this Scala course — Functional Programming Principles in Scala
But why when to take a Specialization’s courses for free for audit then you won’t get any certificate. If you are joining this course to get Coursera certificate then you need to either enroll into the specialization or take a subscription plan like Coursera Plus which provides unlimited access to more than 5000+ Coursera courses, projects, and professional certificates.
2. Scala Programming Mini Boot camp For Beginner
This is one of the best free courses to learn Scala in Udemy. The course is designed for people who want to learn Scala Programming from scratch.
Created by Joydeep Ghosh, this free Scala course also doesn’t expect any prior knowledge of Scala. The best part of this is that you get to do a lot of programming exercises with Scala, which makes it very hands-on.
Here are some of the topics covered in this course:
- Installation Guide
- Variables
- Values
- Function
- List
In short, an excellent little course to start with Scala for free. It’s just one hour long, so you will not go to spend a lot of time learning Scala but after completing this tutorial, you will find yourself at a moderate level of expertise in using Scala from where you can take yourself.
Here is the link to join this free course — . Scala Programming Mini Boot camp For Beginner
3. Escalate Scala Training — Setup Instructions
This is another nice little course that will teach you how to set up Scala in Linux, in particular how to run Activator, Scala, and suitable Scala IDEs like IntelliJ IDEA or Eclipse.
Actually, this course is an introduction to other Dick Wall courses like Scala Applied and Scala Advanced courses, and it’s perfect from that perspective.
The instructor provides simples and step-by-step instructions with some kind of review of the configuration at the end.
The only problem is that the course is concise, so apart from the setup, you are not going to get much, but isn’t that’s the most challenging part of learning a new technology or programming language?
Here is the link to join this Scala course — Escalate Scala Training
4. Scala: Getting Started [Pluralsight]
This is a proper Scala course that will not only teach you the basics of Scala but also how to write less boilerplate code and more business code.
The course starts from ground zero and quickly familiarize you with some of the most powerful features of Scala like REPL, pattern matching, comprehensions, recursion, immutability, interoperability, and much more.
If you’re looking for something new, exciting, and, most importantly, concise, then Scala is the language for you, and this is the course to learn that.
Here is the link to join this course — Scala: Getting Started
Btw, you would need a Pluralsight membership to get access to this course, which costs around $29 per month or $299 annually (14% discount).
If you don’t have Pluralsight membership, I encourage you to get one because it allows you to access their 5000+ online courses on all the latest topics like front-end and back-end development, machine learning, etc. It also includes interactive quizzes, exercises, and the most recent certification material.
They also provide a 10-day free trial without any commitment, which is a great way to not just access this course for free but also to check the quality of courses before joining Pluralsight.
5. Scala and Spark 2 — Getting Started
You might not know, but Scala is very popular in the Big Data world because of its speed and some powerful frameworks like Spark.
This course will teach you how to set up a development environment to build Scala-based Spark applications, which is the most important thing in learning a new programming language or framework.
You will learn how to download and set up Scala and Spark, IntelliJ IDEA, and Scala Plugin and how to develop a Scala application on IDEA. In short, a perfect course if you are learning Scala to solve some problems in the Big Data space.
Here is the link to join this free course — Scala and Spark 2 — Getting Started
6. Functional Program Design in Scala [Free Coursera Course]
This is another free Scala course from Coursera and Martin Oderskey which is part of Functional Programming Principles in Scala Specialization specialization.
In this course, you will learn how to apply the functional programming style in the design of larger Scala applications. You’ll get to know important new functional programming concepts, from lazy evaluation to structuring your libraries using monads.
You will also work on larger and more involved examples, from state space exploration to random testing to discrete circuit simulators.
You’ll also learn some best practices on how to write good Scala code in the real world. Finally, you will learn how to leverage the ability of the compiler to infer values from types.
Here is the link to join this Free Scala Course — Functional Program Design in Scala
By the way, if you find Coursera courses useful, then you can also get the Coursera Plus, a subscription plan from Coursera which gives you unlimited access to their most popular courses, specialization, professional certificate, and guided projects.
7. Learn Scala from Scratch [Free Educative Course]
This is another awesome free online course to learn Scala for Beginners. This course is offered by the Educative platform, a text-based, interactive online learning platform.
Scala provides you the tools to build scalable programs easily and effectively. It’s a statically typed, high-level language that combines functional programming and object-oriented programming into one flexible package.
This free Scala course will help you stay ahead of the curve, make awesome, scalable apps, and learn a highly coveted new programming language. It has more than 12 hours of material with 121 lessons, 9 quizzes, 20 challenges, 191 playgrounds, and 142 illustrations.
Here is the link to join this free course — Learn Scala from Scratch
And, if you find Educative platform and their Grokking courses like Grokking the System Design Interview, Grokking the Object-Oriented Programming interview then consider getting Educative Subscription which provides access to their 250+ courses in just $18 per month. It’s very cost-effective and great for preparing for coding interviews.
That’s all about some of the free online courses to learn Scala Programming language. If you are a Java developer or someone who wants to learn Scala, these free courses can provide you a launchpad to start your beautiful journey in the Scala world.
Even though these Scale courses are free, except one on Pluralsight, which needs a membership, beware of free courses converted into paid ones on Udemy. Make sure you check the price of the course before you join them.
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Thanks for reading this article so far. If you like these best free Scala and Functional Programming courses, then please share them with your friends and colleagues. If you have any questions or feedback, please drop a note.
P. S. — If you are looking for the best Scala course and don’t mind paying some money, then Rock the JVM! Scala and Functional Programming for Beginners is the perfect course to start with. This would be the right choice to learn Scala in 2024.
