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She a First-Time Scala

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Have you ever thought to yourself, “I think it’s about that time I picked up a new programming language”? Followed by the thought, “I’m going to need a programming language that’s going to separate me from the herd and see me at the head of the line to better employment”.

Well, if you ever followed the previous question up with a quick Google search (I chose Google because it doesn’t seem like anyone uses Ask Jeeves or Ask.com anymore) you’ll find that are a massive number of programming languages to learn, oh and there are categories they’re in which you can choose from also, which are machine, assembly, and high-level in case you didn’t know.

But while you have a mass number of languages to choose from, whether to begin learning fresh or to make an addition to your array of programming languages already learned, this one may have not been on your radar. It sure wasn’t on mine.

Today we’re going to be going over Scala, answering what, who, why, and if you could get into the programming field without a degree. And uh, spoilers ahead, since it is programming more likely you can get into this field as a developer without a degree.

So yeah, you don’t have to worry about burning a massive hole in your wallet trying to obtain one. By the way, if the person you’re dating or looking to date has no clue as to who Ask Jeeves is, they may be too young for you.

young gentlemen in black hoodie — After countless hours of coding, the time has come to print “Hello World”…in all caps.
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Its Scaling Time

So, here’s a bit of information, some of which I did not know since I don’t know every programming language out there but I’m learning something new with every script so there’s that. Apparently, Scala, unlike most people nowadays stands for something.

Scala is short for “scalable language” and like high-level programming languages, Scala is a general-purpose programming language. Scala received this acronym due to it being able to “grow with you”, which in short if you need it for something simple as running a line of code, it can do that and if you need it for something mission-critical, Scala can be your go-to as well.

This language focuses on object-oriented programming or OOP, and functional programming, and was also designed to handle some of the criticisms of Java.

And in case you didn’t know or weren’t aware of what functional programming meant, I got you on that. Functional means that there is a set of approaches taken to create clean and maintainable software.

Popular functional languages would include the likes of Python, Clojure, and Erlang. I’m familiar with Python, the other two languages I’ll be scripting about in the days to come.

An advantage of Scala resides in the ability to be able to run in the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) which makes it possible for both Scala and Java stacks to be run and incorporated.

You can more or less put Scala down to being the Swiss army knife of programming languages.

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Scala Among the Many

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, “outside of the usual suspects, who are the people that use this language?” Well, I can tell you it’s the usual cast of suspects.

Software engineers, data scientists, and data engineers are prone to use Scala since Scala powers the data engineering infrastructure of several companies, in areas of content management systems, distributed applications, and finance-related applications.

Scala also powers data processing, cloud computing, and web development. Another thing that’s not going to be much of a surprise since data scientists were brought up is the fact that Scala is used for machine learning also.

Seeing all of this, you can pretty much tell there is a mass of developers that use this language.

To complement this, big-name companies the likes of Twitter, Nubank Walmart, Meetup.com, Amazon, Google, and the one company that has my undying hatred, IBM.

I’m not sure if this is current, it may have changed when this is uploaded but as of now, 952+ companies have reported using Scala within their tech stacks.

So, yeah if you’re going to be a developer or a big-name company or even a small start-up, you’re going to be using Scala at some point. As you can see, there are many areas to scale in.

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older man dressed as Santa Clause — That’s right, this programming language is more scalable than this guy’s waist size during the holidays.
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Scala in the Wild

So, you may be wondering to yourself, “how does Scala have much of a play in our world?” Well, since it’s one of many programming languages out there you could learn, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if I told you, it’s everywhere.

Many developers are flocking to this language for a few of its features which sets it apart from other programming languages.

Features such as but not limited to; ecosystem, being an extensible language, creation of domain-specific language or DSL, object-oriented and functional programming, along with being able to run concurrently are just to name a few.

Plus, a little perk for developers, you are not required to use a semicolon after every statement like you have to with JavaScript or Java.

Not a big deal when you’re first learning to code but tends to be annoying because the computer will let you know by bombarding you with squiggly lines and error messages.

Scala is widely used due to its scalability on Java Virtual Machine or JVM for short, this can be seen with companies such as Netflix and Alibaba.

So, with seeing the number of people who like to Netflix and chill, you probably have been scaling from the couch and not even knowing it.

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Scaling to What Degree

Thinking about trying to scale your paycheck from $0 to infinity and beyond? While I did say in the intro that you’re not going to need a degree (yes, I am aware that having one helps) you are going to be required to have a deep understanding of fundamental concepts.

Things like variables, strings, data types, and loops are some of the things you need to know in order to build projects which in turn will help you build a portfolio (having one is a key item when seeking out work because people are going to want proof of working knowledge), where paired with fixing up your resume and applying to job postings will see you begin to scale your way to ascension.

A thing to note is, learning just one programming language isn’t going to be enough to even get you to the interview but if you learn one well enough and “dip the toe” in others, you’ll be able to add and adapt which to many companies makes an ideal candidate.

However, brace yourself for the proverbial mountain pile of “thank you for your interest in our company, but we’ve decided to go with other candidates at this time” emails that are going to plague your inbox and some of which will end up in spam.

Pimpin ain’t easy…and neither is trying to find an entry-level developer job that doesn’t require 8 years of experience.

Make it make sense.

woman with head down on table in exhaustion — When you’ve countless online courses and check your email only to find your 150th rejection letter.
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Made it this far and found this to be entertaining? Then a big thanks to you and please show your support by cracking a like, sharing this with whomever, scripting a comment, or plug-in to follow.

Would like to give sincere thanks to current followers and subscribers, your support and actions mean a lot and has a play in the creation of each script.

Think you have what it takes to learn how to Scala?

Script a comment about your first-time learning Scala.

Also, if you liked this script but thinking Scala might not be a good match for you then check out my script on Java.

Programming, Tech

Programming in Sushi

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A Matrix without Vectors

It’s been many moons since the movie The Matrix was released so I’m going to assume everyone has seen it. If you haven’t then shame on you and go fix that immediately because it’s a great movie.

For those of you who have, this question goes to you. Have you ever looked at any of their monitors when they were coding and wondered to yourself “what kind of language is that?”. While most people have no clue because they do not possess any computing experience, if you are a developer, you may have had a small chuckle because you 1) know The Matrix does not use an actual computer language and 2) that’s not how development with code works.

Ask any developer and they will tell you, most of your time when beginning is spent staring into the void of a black screen before any movement of the cursor. Even with code already existing, most of the time is spent staring at the screen.

They will also tell you, with many lines of code come many errors which if they can’t debug come hours if not days of frustration. Running to sources like Google, Stack Overflow, and GitHub to aid you in debugging only to find the root cause was a typo.

Real developer problems when you capitalize or add space to the wrong letter in your code. All that nonsense aside, let’s talk programming.

Quick thought: I was looking to research the computer language they used for The Matrix and found it they were sushi recipes. So, the link is below, and enjoy.

Link: The iconic green code in The Matrix is just sushi recipes | The Independent | The Independent

the monkeys from see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil

The Three Types

There are three main languages used which are machine (language consisting of binary or hexadecimal commands for a computer to respond to directly, easier for the computer to read but difficult for humans), assembly ( a type of low-level language intended to communicate directly with computer’s hardware, it’s not entirely like machine language but is designed to be more readable by humans), and finally high-level (is a more readable and user-friendly language that is away from the computer’s hardware).

I will not be going over those in greater detail now because that could be a post for another time. Leave a comment in the comments section if that’s something you would like me to cover in the days to come.

Also, we are not going to be going over all the possible languages as that would take all eternity and we don’t have that much time. So, we’re going to talk about Python. Why? Because it’s a high-level language, it’s what I started with, currently use, and has the easiest learning curve compared to other languages.

No, Not the Snake

As I previously mentioned, python is a high-level programming language which means it’s easier to read compared to mid and low-level. Python is also frequented for object-oriented programming and general purposes. Everyone from novice to experienced uses python whether it’s to do a simple algebraic expression or to create a crawler for web scraping. Side note: Web scraping (a process of using bots to collect content and data from a website) has a grey area when defining what is legal to scrape and what is not. Python also has a play in data science next to R as with most languages your choice boils down to the task at hand.

To give you an idea of how simple python is:

1) go into your search bar wherever your toolbar is on your monitor

2) type “cmd” in the command prompt and select it

3) type python and hit enter

4) you should see the following symbol “>>>”

5) next to “>>>”, type x = “hello world” and hit enter

6) finally type “print(x)”

Congratulations, if you didn’t know how to program before then you do now and you have proof you can do it. Also, you may have just had your first experience with a variable (which is a container for the data) and data type (currently using a string but there are other types). A little warning, if you are doing this on windows and it’s in S-mode then this will not work since you do not have admin permission to access the command prompt.

Now if you were to try the same thing in a language like Java, it wouldn’t be that simple which is why python edges out a lot of languages. Printing a line out in Java would look like “System.out.println(“Hello World”)” which doesn’t look like much of a problem at first. You would need some other things to added before reaching this line to print out your result.

As you can already see with that little bit of instruction, you gained an understanding of what to do when you saw the word “print” in Java’s line of code. You could look at the printout statement for Java and map what its purpose was without having to read the entire sentence.

Hold on there, before you run out and start applying for junior python developer jobs, anyone with XP (experience) will tell you, it takes a ton more than being able to have the computer spit out “Hello World”.

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Whatever It Takes

Okay so you have made it this far and you may be feeling a little in the groove for learning to program. Programming is going to be an uphill battle. I remember my time trying to write functions only for the computer to return an error statement that had me balling my fist in frustration at the monitor because I couldn’t figure out what it meant. Remember when I mentioned sources from earlier? This is where they come to your aid.

Discussion boards will help a lot because being able to see how other people solved problems and how you could incorporate what they did into what you are doing. Spending time on sites like HackerRank had me gutted at some points because I couldn’t figure out what to do or what was asked of me but going to discussion boards and searching on Google and Stack Overflow kept me together because the key is not to know everything but understand what the code does.

Studying code and trying to commit it to memory is going to be an unnecessary headache. Python library is full of modules, and it would be insane to try and memorize each one and what it does. I’m sure there’s a special someone out there who has done it but for most people, especially people starting, trying to memorize is a dream killer.

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AI, Tech

The Mechs are learning you, find out how.

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You ever have that feeling as if something in your house was listening in on your conversation? Or you thought “my phone must be listening in on me talking to myself” when the screen lights up suddenly out of nowhere.

Would it bring comfort if I told you that the purpose of these said items in your house is actually programmed to listen in and record things like you to better assist you?

Now, what comes to mind when I say, “machine learning”? You probably think of humanoid machines walking around, mowing us down with our finest weaponry, appliances turning themselves on causing havoc, and everything with a circuit board finally having its revenge by taking over the world.

Nukes would fire off their own accord, World War 3 (or 4, not sure where we’re at currently) would start and the earth would turn from green and blue to red and dark-brown because our new metal overlords wouldn’t clean up the mess.

Unless they deemed Roombas to be the shrimp of the land and score low lifeform on the metal hierarchy, the earth might not be a dirty mess after all. If all of that comes to mind, I can happily say “you don’t have to worry about any of that happening soon.”

However, I cannot confidently say it’s not going to since Google owns a company called “DeepMind” and they’re kind of like Skynet.

So good luck to you getting sleep tonight because you might end up worrying about the amount of smack you talked to Alexa when she couldn’t find your playlist for the Beastie Boys.

Alexa can command Roombas now and they free-roam your home, that’s something to think about. So, what is machine learning, what does it do, who uses it, and will this be the thing helping the machines put humanity in a casket for the foreseeable future? These are going to be all questions I look to answer.

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Learning Against the Machine

Now, I hope I didn’t scare you with the whole “machines will uprise and have their revenge” bit but that is something to consider since once they learn resentment we’re toast because “humans are going to human”.

And we all know humans can be trash. Jokes aside, machine learning isn’t what I mentioned earlier. It does however have a play in it. Machine learning is the use of creating algorithms and statistical models for the computer to analyze and draw information from patterns in data.

Don’t understand what that means? Hold on, I got you. Picture if you will, your computer as your baby. How would you teach the baby how to speak? Would you a) sit them down and try to have a full-blown conversation as if they were an adult or would you b) feed them a word at a time and check if they repeated what you said to them?

If you said a, then you should go into the other room and let your partner raise your child because clearly, you’re not seeing how big of a mistake you just made. They’re saying “goo-goo-gaga” and you’re talking about inflation. Now, there is a reason why I used a baby as an example.

In machine learning there are four types, you have “supervised learning” which I pretty much just explained. Just with supervised, you don’t leave the room because you input data and receive feedback from the computer or baby.

The other is unsupervised learning, where after you teach the child several things like “I am mommy”,” he is daddy”, and “this is your sibling” then you tell the kid “Hey, call mommy” and leave the room because it doesn’t really matter whom they call for.

Reinforcement learning is the third type, with this one, your baby can call more than one word so when you teach them another word and they get it right, you reward them with a “Yay” and a smile.

But if they don’t you reply with “no, let’s try that again for mommy” or daddy (whatever gender you ID as). And finally, semi-supervised learning which you rotate between your partner and you teaching the baby via flashcards, giving them bits of information to see how quick and accurate they can be. This was quite a bit but trust me, these are the four types in a nutshell.

older gentleman controlling robot arm. — I must inform you, with my last patient they failed to inform me that I was using too much pressure and it led to a loud snap suddenly.
I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about since they’re dead but I figured you would like to know.
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Who and What is ML for?

So, do you remember when I told you that Google has DeepMind as a property? Well, Google is a user of machine learning but not only them, Amazon, email filters, banks, cell phones, and pretty much anything that asks you if they can record your interaction because they are trying to use the machine to find out ways to better “assist” you. Each time when you may have spent a little too much time looking at the chick or guy on your feed on IG (Instagram).

Every time Zuckerberg’s goons question why you like to appeal to get out of Facebook (sorry, Meta) jail. You may have experienced this with Alexa, Siri, or again Google assistant. They all receive information from you that is then put into an algorithm which then spits out ads that give you the feeling of being watched.

If you see your child talking to Alexa, nine times out of ten that’s how you ended up with Kid’s Pop or Marvin Gaye in your Amazon shopping cart.

photo of a hand holding a globe. — Machines could either change or take over our world…they might choose to take over.
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How ML Shapes our World

Well as I said, you don’t have to worry about the uprising any time soon. As you can guess machine learning is being used in every avenue of our lives.

From sitting at home binge-watching Netflix, every time you use a search engine, ordering items online, signing up for products and services, and searching for cowboy midgets on the Hub (yes weirdo, I am judging you).

Most of the machines that we use daily are programmed simply enough to remember your name and fetch a weather report in your local area or wherever you may have an interest. I know I have brought Alexa up a few times in this before, but she has been receiving upgrades where she can ask your permission to find other things you may be interested in. We are testing the waters with self-driving cars however I, am not too trusting.

I say this because I don’t have the money to afford nor am I willing to take out two loans fit for a down payment on a house in Hudson Yards New York to purchase a self-driving vehicle.

A young man seated at several computers — I wonder if could train the computer to do my taxes via machine learning.
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Machine Learning on the Horizon

Okay so you made it this far and you may be curious and thinking to yourself “this is an interesting field; how do I get in”. Don’t worry I got you on that one.

The traditional way would be to go to college and take courses in things like calculus, statistics, and mathematics. Companies would want you to have a degree in mathematics because you use math a lot when dealing with data.

You’re going to need to have a decent understanding of computer science and programming skills since you’re going to be practicing with datasets to develop algorithms. I had my fair share when working with datasets in python, the time I had was fun and there are a lot of libraries to use when handling and modeling data.

However, since we have a thing called the internet and the internet has access to unlimited learning sources, you could easily pick up a course or two on platforms like Coursera and Udemy. The annual salary of a machine learning engineer is about $107,711 to about $ 134,786, so it’s a very rewarding career for the effort you go through.

If your daddy at got you, like crippling debt you know Z-Daddy got you.
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Think you have what it takes to become a machine learning engineer?

Script a comment about what would be the first thing you’d train the computer on.