Some basics about Scala syntax that aren’t obvious (especially if you are coming from Java)

• The type of an object or value comes after the value, using a colon: name:String means “name has the type String”
• If Scala can figure out the type of something from the context, you don’t need to declare the type (this is called type inference). val name = "Dave" results in name having the type String. This is statically assigned, and not dynamic is it would be in Ruby (e.g.)
• You don’t need semicolons unless Scala can’t figure out where statements end
• Methods are defined via the “=” sign after the method signature, and don’t require braces if they are one-liners. def toString = first + "," + last is perfectly valid.
• Type parameters are found inside square braces. Array[String] is an array of type string (the same as List<String> in Java)
• declaring something as a val means it cannot be changed; val age = 30 is identical to the Java construct final int age = 30;
• declaring something as a var means it can be changed
• Operators can be overloaded (more precisely, the characters you are allowed in a method or function name are much more varied than in Java)
• The dot between an object and a method call is optional. person.toString() is identical to person toString()
• Parens are optional for zero argument calls. person toString is identical to the two expressions above