Data scientists have a number of language options, including Python and Java, when planning a production deployment for machine learning solutions in support of a data science projects. More and more these days, however, the programming language of choice is Scala, a functional programming language that is growing in popularity.
To learn about what Scala has to offer, here is a great video “Introduction to Functional Programming in Scala” by Joe Barnes, Senior Software Architect at Mentor Graphics:
As an additional resource for investigating Scala, here is an informative video by John A. De Goes, CTO of Precog, “Building a Data Science Platform in Scala.” He talks plainly about the highs and lows of functional programming with scala, scalaz and the JVM. He points out how the JVM punishes “good functional code” and how difficult it is to hire functional programmers.