Best YouTube Channels to Learn Scala

This time I’m not gonna teach you about monads, monoids, trifunctors, implicits or any other Scala-related notions. Think of this post as more of an aggregate. The one that you can save to your ‘Reading List' in Google Chrome or the Pocket app and come back to it when you want to start watching YouTube.

Why you may ask?! The answer is simple. I really value YouTube to be an extremely helpful and useful learning tool. Of course, it can be a time-waster or the place where you binge-watch some cat videos, but it can be extremely helpful too.

In this article, I want to share some of my favourite YouTube channels where you can learn Scala and functional programming. Let’s get started!

The best way to start is by splitting channels into groups. You might find some of them useful for learning new things by watching courses for example, while others might have different content like video conference recordings or meetups.

Conference channels

This section contains channels where the vast majority of videos are conference-related. I added them in random order.

• ScalaDays

Recordings come from Scala Days conference which usually takes place in Lausanne but due to obvious reasons is now held remotely. You can find lots of great talks there about Scala and Functional Programming. The guys also have Twitter and a website that you can check.

• Scala in the city

This channel has talks recorded during Scala in the city meetup which is hosted by Signify Technology.

• Konfy

Another great place where you can find plenty of useful talks. Here you will enjoy JVM related technologies. By that mean you will watch useful things about Scala accompanied by Java and Kotlin related talks.

• Scala Swarm

One more Scala conference hosted in hot Portugal. Hopefully, you will enjoy these talks as much as people enjoy the weather in Portugal.

• As Scala 3 is around the corner Sphereit decided to organise a Launch Party. You might fancy watching them on their channel.

• Another conference devoted to functional programming is Lambda World. Apart from Scala, you might want to watch Haskell, Kotlin, or F# related talk.

• Scala World seems to be a new and not well-known channel but has lots of useful content that might help you during the day to day work.

• Scala UA is a conference hosted in Kyiv. You can find new talks at Scala UA Conference youtube channel.

• Scala Wave

Bunch of recording from Scala Wave conference. I noticed that the channel is inactive for about 2 years now but that’s probably due to a lack of conference. Hope it will be back with new recordings.

• I do also have a surprise for people who speak Japanese or want to learn Scala and Japanese at the same time. If you fit this description, please visit Scala Matsuri. You will find lots of talks there. It’s hard for me to say something about their value but those recorded in English are worth noticing.

Company channels

Here you can find channels that are connected to companies using Scala on a daily basis. They mostly contain talks from different experts promoting Scala.

• As you probably might have heard already ZIO seems to be “The Next Big Thing” in the Scala ecosystem. It’s developed by the company called Ziverge which is led by Jon De Goes. On their channel you will mostly enjoy ZIO-related talks.

• 47 degrees is a consulting company providing services in functional programming, Scala, Haskell, and Kotlin. On their YouTube channel, you will find their academy as well as some courses and lessons that are given by their employees.

• SoftwareMill is a Polish software consultancy firm. They promote Scala and Java across different domains starting from fintech through healthcare and ML solutions. They contribute to many open source libraries like for example tapir that’s why they published some tutorials on how to use them. Also, they stand behind the Scalar conference so you can enjoy watching talks from that as well.

Personal channels

Here is the list of the personal channels that are not associated with any conference or company and have videos to be more like courses. To be honest I find them very useful. Big thanks to the authors!

• DevInsideYou

This channel is created by Vlad and contains so many useful courses of different lengths that it’s really hard to describe how thankful I personally am for that. Especially that the author uses clear examples over sophisticated definitions that are not so easy to understand like the final tagless pattern. Check this out and you will thank me later.

• Rock the JVM

You might know the author - Daniel Ciocîrlan. He's also producing great Udemy courses about pure Scala and Akka, ranging from beginners to experienced developers. Recently Daniel put more focus on Scala 3, its features, and some functional concepts using libraries like Cats Effects 3. He's uploading new videos every week!

• Functional Justin

A relatively new channel with not so many subscribers and views. The author focuses on Scala 3 and its new features.

Summary

To briefly sum up I listed my favourite channels but for sure there will be more and more Scala-related content produced on YouTube. If you feel I missed something please let me know. I’ll be super happy to update this article and let people know about it.

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