Explore distributed programming in Scala through this conference talk that introduces Spores and a new pickling framework. Dive into the challenges of distributed systems and learn how these innovations address fundamental requirements. Discover the benefits of Scala's pickling framework, including minimal boilerplate, customizable pickle formats, and improved performance. Understand the concept of Spores as composable, mobile functional behaviors and their potential applications in distributed programming. Gain insights into the speaker's research on language support for distributed and concurrent programming, as well as her contributions to the Scala ecosystem and education.