Is financial aid available?

Yes. In select learning programs, you can apply for financial aid or a scholarship if you can’t afford the enrollment fee. If fin aid or scholarship is available for your learning program selection, you’ll find a link to apply on the description page.

Functional Programming Principles in Scala (Scala 2 version)

Seize the savings! Get 40% off 3 months of Coursera Plus and full access to thousands of courses.

Functional Programming Principles in Scala (Scala 2 version)

Instructor: Martin Odersky

8,164 already enrolled

Included with

Learn more

6 modules

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.

65 reviews

Intermediate level

Recommended experience

5 weeks to complete

at 10 hours a week

Flexible schedule

Learn at your own pace

6 modules

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.

65 reviews

Intermediate level

Recommended experience

5 weeks to complete

at 10 hours a week

Flexible schedule

Learn at your own pace

What you'll learn

Understand the principles of functional programming
Write purely functional programs, using recursion, pattern matching, and higher-order functions
Design immutable data structures
Combine functional programming with objects and classes

Skills you'll gain

Tools you'll learn

Details to know

Shareable certificate

Add to your LinkedIn profile

Assessments

1 assignment

Taught in English

See how employees at top companies are mastering in-demand skills

Learn more about Coursera for Business

logos of Petrobras, TATA, Danone, Capgemini, P&G and L'Oreal

There are 6 modules in this course

Functional programming is becoming increasingly widespread in industry. This trend is driven by the adoption of Scala as the main programming language for many applications. Scala fuses functional and object-oriented programming in a practical package. It interoperates seamlessly with both Java and Javascript. Scala is the implementation 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.

In this course you will discover 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. 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. The course is complemented by a series programming projects as homework assignments. Recommended background: You should have at least one year programming experience. Proficiency with Java or C# is ideal, but experience with other languages such as C/C++, Python, Javascript or Ruby is also sufficient. You should have some familiarity using the command line.

Get up and running with Scala on your computer. Complete an example assignment to familiarize yourself with our unique way of submitting assignments. In this week, we'll learn the difference between functional imperative programming. We step through the basics of Scala; covering expressions, evaluation, conditionals, functions, and recursion

What's included

11 videos7 readings1 assignment3 programming assignments

11 videos Total 139 minutes

Course Introduction 3 minutes
Tools Setup for Linux 23 minutes
Tools Setup for Mac OS X 21 minutes
Tools Setup for Windows 19 minutes
Lecture 1.1 - Programming Paradigms 15 minutes
Lecture 1.2 - Elements of Programming 14 minutes
Lecture 1.3 - Evaluation Strategies and Termination 4 minutes
Lecture 1.4 - Conditionals and Value Definitions 9 minutes
Lecture 1.5 - Example: square roots with Newton's method 11 minutes
Lecture 1.6 - Blocks and Lexical Scope 8 minutes
Lecture 1.7 - Tail Recursion 13 minutes

7 readings Total 70 minutes

Tools Setup (Please read) 10 minutes
Cheat Sheet 10 minutes
IntelliJ IDEA Tutorial 10 minutes
SBT tutorial and Submission of Assignments (Please read) 10 minutes
Learning Resources 10 minutes
Scala Tutorial 10 minutes
Scala Style Guide 10 minutes

1 assignment Total 30 minutes

Learning check-in 30 minutes

3 programming assignments Total 540 minutes

Recursion 180 minutes
Example Assignment 180 minutes
Recursion 180 minutes

This week, we'll learn about functions as first-class values, and higher order functions. We'll also learn about Scala's syntax and how it's formally defined. Finally, we'll learn about methods, classes, and data abstraction through the design of a data structure for rational numbers.

What's included

7 videos2 programming assignments

7 videos Total 84 minutes

Lecture 2.1 - Higher-Order Functions 10 minutes
Lecture 2.2 - Currying 15 minutes
Lecture 2.3 - Example: Finding Fixed Points 11 minutes
Lecture 2.4 - Scala Syntax Summary 4 minutes
Lecture 2.5 - Functions and Data 12 minutes
Lecture 2.6 - More Fun With Rationals 15 minutes
Lecture 2.7 - Evaluation and Operators 16 minutes

2 programming assignments Total 360 minutes

Functional Sets 180 minutes
Functional Sets 180 minutes

This week, we'll cover traits, and we'll learn how to organize classes into hierarchies. We'll cover the hierarchy of standard Scala types, and see how to organize classes and traits into packages. Finally, we'll touch upon the different sorts of polymorphism in Scala.

What's included

3 videos2 programming assignments

This week we'll learn about the relationship between functions and objects in Scala; functions *are* objects! We'll zoom in on Scala's type system, covering subtyping and generics, and moving on to more advanced aspects of Scala's type system like variance. Finally, we'll cover Scala's most widely used data structure, Lists, and one of Scala's most powerful tools, pattern matching.

What's included

7 videos2 programming assignments

7 videos Total 117 minutes

Lecture 4.1 - Objects Everywhere 20 minutes
Lecture 4.2 - Functions as Objects 8 minutes
Lecture 4.3 - Subtyping and Generics 15 minutes
Lecture 4.4 - Variance (Optional) 22 minutes
Lecture 4.5 - Decomposition 17 minutes
Lecture 4.6 - Pattern Matching 20 minutes
Lecture 4.7 - Lists 16 minutes

2 programming assignments Total 360 minutes

Huffman Coding 180 minutes
Huffman Coding 180 minutes

This week we dive into Lists, the most commonly-used data structure in Scala.

What's included

7 videos

After a deep-dive into Lists, this week we'll explore other data structures; vectors, maps, ranges, arrays, and more. We'll dive into Scala's powerful and flexible for-comprehensions for querying data.

What's included

6 videos2 programming assignments

Instructor

Instructor ratings

(23 ratings)

Martin Odersky

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

6 Courses 236,294 learners

Offered by

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Explore more from Software Development

Status: Free Trial
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Functional Programming Principles in Scala
Course
Status: Preview
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Functional Program Design in Scala (Scala 2 version)
Course
Status: Free Trial
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Functional Program Design in Scala
Course
Status: Free Trial
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Functional Programming in Scala
Specialization

Why people choose Coursera for their career

Felipe M.

Learner since 2018

"To be able to take courses at my own pace and rhythm has been an amazing experience. I can learn whenever it fits my schedule and mood."

Jennifer J.

Learner since 2020

"I directly applied the concepts and skills I learned from my courses to an exciting new project at work."

Larry W.

Learner since 2021

"When I need courses on topics that my university doesn't offer, Coursera is one of the best places to go."

Chaitanya A.

"Learning isn't just about being better at your job: it's so much more than that. Coursera allows me to learn without limits."

Learner reviews

5 stars
81.53%
4 stars
16.92%
3 stars
1.53%
2 stars
0%
1 star
0%

Showing 3 of 65

Reviewed on Dec 16, 2022

The course gives a much deeper understanding than a basic course on Scala. It's from the Scala creator himself.Martin is the best

Reviewed on Nov 27, 2021

A bit academic at times but that is the nature of scala

Reviewed on Jan 5, 2023

The course offers a good introduction to Scala and Functional Programming principles. I learned a lot, thanks!

View more reviews

Open new doors with Coursera Plus

Unlimited access to 10,000+ world-class courses, hands-on projects, and job-ready certificate programs - all included in your subscription

Learn more

Advance your career with an online degree

Earn a degree from world-class universities - 100% online

Explore degrees

Join over 3,400 global companies that choose Coursera for Business

Upskill your employees to excel in the digital economy

Learn more

Frequently asked questions

This course uses Scala 2. You can find a more recent version of the same course based on the latest stable version of Scala here.

To access the course materials, assignments and to earn a Certificate, you will need to purchase the Certificate experience when you enroll in a course. You can try a Free Trial instead, or apply for Financial Aid. The course may offer 'Full Course, No Certificate' instead. This option lets you see all course materials, submit required assessments, and get a final grade. This also means that you will not be able to purchase a Certificate experience.

When you purchase a Certificate you get access to all course materials, including graded assignments. Upon completing the course, your electronic Certificate will be added to your Accomplishments page - from there, you can print your Certificate or add it to your LinkedIn profile.