diff --git a/blog/_posts/2022-01-19-learn-scala-with-online-courses.md b/blog/_posts/2022-01-19-learn-scala-with-online-courses.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..66b4a6165 --- /dev/null +++ b/blog/_posts/2022-01-19-learn-scala-with-online-courses.md @@ -0,0 +1,83 @@ +--- +layout: blog-detail +post-type: blog +by: Julien Richard-Foy, Vincent Derouand, and Valérie Pedroni (Scala Center) +title: "Learn Scala with Online Courses" +--- + +Happy new year to everyone! We hope 2022 will be of great joy, and will be a +source of fruitful collaboration between the Scala Center and the community! + +As you might be listing your 2022 goals, why not include Scala in it? +Refresh your programming skills, acquire new knowledge, and get a new +certificate! + +In this post, we remind you of our online courses designed for both beginners +and experienced programmers, we report on what happened in 2021, and we share +our plans for 2022. + +## 2021 Retrospective + +In 2021, with the release of Scala 3 we updated nearly all of our MOOCs to +Scala 3: + +- [Functional Programming Principles in Scala], +- [Functional Program Design], +- [Parallel Programming], +- [Programming Reactive Systems] with Akka. + +We also kept the Scala 2 versions of these courses online, but we observed +that the majority of the learners took the Scala 3 versions (e.g., 97% in the +case of Functional Programming Principles in Scala). + +The only courses that still use Scala 2 are the courses that depend on Spark, +which does not yet fully support Scala 3 (see below our plans in this regard). + +We also published a new course: [Effective Programming in Scala]. This +course teaches programmers all they need to be ready to work in Scala. +We are proud to report that this course was one of the [100 most popular +courses of the year 2021][rank] (out of the 2900 courses created in 2021 on +various MOOC platforms). Thanks to Effective Programming in Scala, we believe +that hiring should not be a concern for companies using Scala. + +In total, in 2021, more than three thousand people completed a Scala online +course! Thank you to them for trusting us as their teachers, and +congratulations on acquiring new knowledge! + +Finally, we have recently re-organized the website to have a +[dedicated page](https://docs.scala-lang.org/online-courses.html) presenting +the Scala courses from the Scala Center. We also published a short video +summarizing the main points: + +
+ +
+ +## Plans for 2022 + +In 2022, we plan to update the Spark courses to Spark 3.2 and Scala 3: + +- [Big Data Analysis with Scala and Spark], +- [Scala Capstone Project]. + +Additionally, we plan to experiment with alternative online learning models. +So far, all our courses are self-paced and the assignments grading is fully +automated. This model is perfect for autonomous learners, but we believe +there is also a need for a complementary model, where learners would get +code reviews from experts, and one-to-one sessions with instructors. This +year, we plan to publish some of our courses under such a complementary model. + +## Acknowledgements + +The Scala Center is committed to providing high-quality, free, Scala +educational material. We are grateful to all the learners who pay to get +certificates of completion. Our work would not be possible without your support. + +[Functional Programming Principles in Scala]: https://coursera.org/learn/scala-functional-programming +[Functional Program Design]: https://coursera.org/learn/scala-functional-program-design +[Parallel Programming]: https://coursera.org/learn/scala-parallel-programming +[Programming Reactive Systems]: https://coursera.org/learn/scala-akka-reactive +[Effective Programming in Scala]: https://coursera.org/learn/effective-scala +[Big Data Analysis with Scala and Spark]: https://coursera.org/learn/scala-spark-big-data +[Scala Capstone Project]: https://coursera.org/learn/scala-capstone-project +[rank]: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/most-popular-free-online-courses/