How Scala Experience Improved Our Java Development A Case Study at PhET Interactive Simulations

PhET Interactive Simulations at the University of Colorado creates free, open-source educational simulations. After developing several simulations in Scala, we identified several advantageous techniques and patterns in Scala which we were able to transfer to subsequent Java development projects. Specifically, our experience with Scala helped us attain the following advantages in our Java development: improved object initialization, improved code organization, reduced code duplication and improved management of boilerplate code. These effect of these changes has been to make our code easier to write, read and maintain. These ideas are not specific to our application domain, but should work equally well in broad range of domains. We also discuss how adoption of these Scala-like patterns in Java code can simplify the learning curve for Java developers who want to learn Scala.