Lazy is good: understand why it’s good for you that Spark is lazy

This new chapter, chapter 4, of Spark with Java (https://www.manning.com/books/spark-with-java) is not only about celebrating laziness, it also teaches, through examples and experiments, the fundamental differences in building a data application using the traditional way and using Apache Spark.

Laziness is often associated to a very negative behavior. When someone says: “oh, such and such are just lazy,” I can only think about Asterix in Corsica. I clipped a scene from the famous graphic novel. Of course, Corsicans are not lazy! I have a few Corsican friends and all I can remember is that they are pretty efficient… maybe not in the way you expect, as those four guys are actively ruining the Roman efforts to build a road. Of course, any analogy with what is happening now is pure coincidence, right?

but I like to see laziness as a positive skill: because one wants to do less, one thinks more about the task. And this is exactly what Spark’s laziness is all about. Spark, thanks to Catalyst, really works very hard for not working too hard. 

In this chapter, you will learn about understanding what efficient laziness is, understanding why and how Spark is efficiently lazy, comparing the operations to build a data application the traditional way and the Spark way, building great build data-centric applications using Spark, learning more about transformations and actions, and leveraging Catalyst (Spark’s built-in optimizer).

Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, and 9 are now available. I am revising chapter 5 and chapter 6 is being edited. This means that, shortly, the first part of the book will be available. Very rich appendices, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H (my favorite), I, P, S (just to start a controversy), and Z are also available.

Code examples for chapter 4 are in https://github.com/jgperrin/net.jgp.books.sparkWithJava.ch04. 

Having written all that, I can only vouch for Asterix. If you have not read this opus, just buy it, and read a few pages between the chapters of Spark with Java. You should read Asterix and you can get Asterix in Corsica from  Amazon.