[codeslinger]

I have all the books currently out now on Scala and I think "Programming Scala" by Wampler and Payne is the best one for learning the language: http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Scala-Scalability-Function...

Steer clear of the Artima book: its huge, out of date and not written particularly well.

[brl]

I disagree with this to the point of saying that the Artima book is one of the most well written technical books I've ever read and the O'Reilly book is rather a mess. The Artima book is written by the creator of the language and while it is a couple of years old the information is still 95% relevant to the latest language changes.

I would recommend getting a copy of both of them, but you might want to check out the online version of the O'Reilly book before buying it:

http://programming-scala.labs.oreilly.com/

The Pragmatic Programmers book is not bad either, but it's only a short introduction to the language compared to the other two books mentioned.

All three books have nearly identical titles: Programming (in) Scala

[stephenjudkins]

I agree about the Artima book; its organization follows the Scala specification (http://www.scala-lang.org/docu/files/ScalaReference.pdf) very closely. I'd almost advise reading the specification instead, but it's a slog.

The O'Reilly book is great.

Also keep in mind that several important changes or additions to the language have been made with version 2.8, and many books aren't up to date.

[alanh]

Interesting, considering the Artima book has so many 5-star reviews on Amazon.