Learn PLAY with Real Code Examples

Play follows MVC architecture for structured and maintainable code.

Supports both Java and Scala, offering type-safe routing and templates.

Built-in asynchronous processing for high-performance, non-blocking applications.

Provides integrated testing, asset management, and RESTful API support.

Hot-reloading for rapid development without server restarts.

MVC architecture

Controllers, models, and views

Asynchronous programming support

Template engines (Twirl for Scala/Java)

Dependency injection support

Routes - map URLs to controller actions

Controllers - handle request logic

Models - represent business domain and data

Views - Twirl templates for HTML rendering

Asynchronous actions - non-blocking request handling

app/ - controllers, models, views

conf/ - routes, application.conf, logging

public/ - static assets (JS, CSS, images)

test/ - unit and functional tests

build.sbt - project build configuration

Define routes in `conf/routes`

Create controllers using Play's Java/Scala classes

Define models using Java/Scala classes or ORM like Ebean

Build views with Twirl templates

Use asynchronous actions for high-performance endpoints

Beginner: Static website with basic routes

Intermediate: CRUD app using Java/Scala controllers and models

Advanced: REST API with JSON serialization and asynchronous actions

Expert: High-concurrency microservices with reactive streams

Architect: Large distributed system integrating multiple Play services

Play vs Spring Boot -> Play is reactive and stateless; Spring Boot is larger but more feature-rich

Play vs Django -> Play is JVM-based; Django is Python-based with similar MVC pattern

Play vs Express.js -> Play offers type-safe routing and JVM performance; Express.js is lightweight JS runtime

Play vs Laravel -> Play is reactive and Java/Scala-based; Laravel is PHP-based with expressive syntax

Play vs Rails -> Play is asynchronous and reactive; Rails emphasizes convention over configuration

2007 - Play Framework 1.0 released

2009 - Play 1.x stable with Java support

2011 - Play 2.0 released with Scala support and new architecture

2012 - Play 2.1 introduced asynchronous programming support

2014 - Play 2.3 enhanced WebSockets and asset handling

2015 - Play 2.4 added dependency injection and modularity

2016 - Play 2.5 improved reactive streams support

2018 - Play 2.6 with Akka HTTP integration

2020 - Play 2.8 LTS with Scala 2.13 and Java 11 support

2025 - Latest release with improved performance, security, and tooling

MVC - Model-View-Controller architecture

Twirl - template engine for views

Futures - asynchronous programming construct

Hot Reload - live reloading during development

Akka Streams - reactive streams integration