How to reduce the number of objects created in Scala?

Question

I\'m programming a computer graphics application in Scala which uses a RGB class to return the color at a point in the image. As you can imagine, the function which return the c

Answer 1

You can encode RGB with single long or int. Moreover, in scala 2.10 you can define value class for primitive values, say

class RGB private(val underlying: Long) extends AnyVal {
  def toTriple = /*decoding to (red, green, blue)*/
} 
object RGB {
  def apply(red: Int, green: Int, blue: Int) = /* encode and create class with new RGB(longvalue)*/
}

With value class you can still have type information and enjoy class-less memory layout in JVM.