Josh Suereth's long-awaited book was published a couple of weeks ago. It is by no means an introductory text - it seems to be aimed predominantly at java developers who already have a good grasp of scala syntax.
I feel that one of the main threats to the scala community is the possibility of it polarising into OO and pure functional factions. I found Josh's book tremendously helpful in attempting to establish a truly idiomatic scala style and this is not an easy goal to achieve. Throughout the book, he develops rules which summarise best practice. As expected, these encourage a more functional style, but he is not afraid to say where their over-use becomes awkward, or to point out scala constructs that are best avoided. At all times, he has in the back of his mind the professional programmer, working in a team, and he wants to make the environment as productive as possible, with no nasty surprises.
For me, the most important chapters were those on implicits and the type system which were treated very thoroughly and provide a very understandable introduction to the coverage of type classes in the final chapter. As such, this book may also act as a wonderful introduction to Functional Programming in Scala when it arrives.
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