Programming Scala: Scalability - implicit conversion deprecation

[Alex Khvatov]

Hello Dean,

In your opinion, with deprecation of implicit conversions in Scala 3, do you think it better for newcomers to learn 'extension methods and givens' or one should still start with learning implicit conversions in order to work with Spark (I don't think Spark will migrate to Scala 3 quickly enough) and later move to Scala 3?
Do you compare the two (implicit conversion and givens) in your book?

Regards,
Alex

[Dean Wampler]

Hi, Alex,

If you are working on a Scala3 code base only, then definitely just learn extension methods, givens, etc. Unfortunately, most people will work with mixed Scala 2 and 3 code bases for a while, so you have to understand both forms. They interoperate well, fortunately. I provide in-depth coverage of both forms in the book, for this reason.

I don't recall that you need to use implicits a lot when writing Spark apps, even though it uses them in the implementation. So that might make things easier.

Therefore, I think I would learn about extension methods, etc. first, because I think the new idioms are better at showing good uses for these powerful capabilities. Then you might need to learn the syntax for Scala 2 equivalents, but hopefully the core ideas of why they are useful will already be familiar.

-- Dean