SBT in Action

by Joshua Suereth, Matthew Farwell

Simple Build Tool: sbt. The idea of a high quality build tool for Scala is indeed simple, but sbt itself is richly-featured and powerful. Documentation for sbt is sparse, and the blogs, tutorials, and other bits scattered across the web leave you wanting a comprehensive, accurate picture of how to build Scala projects effectively and efficiently. This book will help you transform ugly, complex builds into a streamlined, automated, and repeatable process.

SBT in Action is first and foremost a tutorial about effectively building Scala projects. It introduces the sbt tool with a simple project that establishes the fundamentals of running commands and tasks. Next, it shows you how to use the peripheral libraries in sbt to make common tasks simpler. This includes an I/O library to deal with files and how to parse user input in a meaningful fashion. Finally, it covers how to deploy software effectively.

Genres: Programming, Technology, Computer Science

325 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[U. P. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although well written this book looks quite outdated. Maybe a Second Edition could be appreciated by future readers.

[Sebastian Gebski · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've almost lost hope this one's gonna be published, it was in MEAP for so long. But, in the end, it's worth waiting for - it's one of the books that doesn't start with full syntax & DSL grammar spec, instead it goes for "learn-by-example" approach & ... I think it worked - I feel more capable in playing with SBT now, but I still don't find myself an expert & I believe I will still be surprised by SBT again & again in future.

The part I can't properly review, because I've skimmed through quickly was the extendibility - I don't really feel like going for that in the nearest future, but I may come back to that part some day later.

Anyway, if you're up for some build system stuff, you don't know SBT yet & you toy with Scala/Akka/Play, this is the book for you.

[Michael Koltsov · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disclaimer: The book that I’ve read is the newest edition available at safari

I’m not even sure whom this book is dedicated to. If you’re a Scala developer then this book is too outdated due to that most of the APIs it explains are either deprecated of heavily rewritten. If you’re a DevOps… well, you don’t read books at all. You can definitely use it as a reference for some of the SBT commands, but there’re lots of such references available on the Internet with convenient search by word as well as code examples.

You would definitely find another thing to spend your money on than buying this book.



My score: 2 stars

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Note: I proofread this book, so keep that in mind, but I don't make anything additional based on its success or failure. Having said that, I think it's safe to say I'll be recommending this book without hesitation to anyone who wants to really get sbt. I wish it went into a bit more depth in some areas, but I understand that would be difficult to do without making the book twice as long and likely impenetrable to casual or first time users of sbt.

[Jerzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

MEAP v08: not yet complete, but already great source for all Scala developers, both beginners and advanced users of sbt.

More books from Josh!

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Useful.