Session Description

Since 2019, the International Software Architecture Qualification board has featured a three-day curriculum for Functional Software Architecture (“FUNAR”) as part of its Advanced Level certification. In our training implementing the curriculum, we work through exercises examples written in Scala (alternatively Haskell), among them a complete web application. The short duration of the course (which is usually preceded by a one-day introduction to functional programming) puts significant constraints on how much and what it can cover, but also poses didactic challenges as all material must be explainable and carry over to other functional languages. Over the past six years, we have continually assessed the effectiveness of the course and made many iterative improvements. I’ll report on our experience and draw some inferences not just about teaching but also about viable software architecture in Scala and what its advantages and differences are with traditional software architecture.