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> Scala's surface area isn't especially large though? You'll find plenty of disagreement with that feeling everywhere you ask... The fact that you choose to u

> Scala's surface area isn't especially large though? You'll find plenty of disagreement with that feeling everywhere you ask... The fact that you choose to use a small subset of all these features is irrelevant: eventually, you have to hold all the language in your head because you will work with other people and other organizations that have different standards than you do. Which is why it's so important for a language to learn how to say "no" to new features, something I feel Scala has been unable to do.

whateveracct 11y ago
What other features could someone even reasonably use though? I say this because what I listed above isn't some small subset of Scala. It's actually the majority of the language. Hmm I'll try to think of some features that we don't use at work that would add additional semantic overhead: - Inheritance? I mean okay but nobody I work with makes heavy use of this anyways and if I were working in a Scala shop where inheritance was used heavily it would be like working in a different language. So I suppose I'll give you that although I don't see how that makes the language hard to learn or work with. - Mutable collections + references (vars)? Once again nobody I work with uses these outside of local mutability when they fail to be able to leverage immutable abstractions that do the same thing. If I worked in a Scala shop where mutability was used without care, it would be like working in a different language entirely true. - while loops? I don't know what else I'm grasping for straws here. If anything, the additional 'complicated' things we use in Scala aren't language features but rather libraries, mostly scalaz/shapeless.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > If anything, the additional 'complicated' things we use in Scala aren't language features but rather libraries One thing with Scala is that various features of the language allow libraries to reshape the "feel" of the language, because a number of things that would be fixed in the language in many other languages can be modified by libraries in Scala.
  - mike_hearn 11y ago
    Consider that whilst Kotlin does not support things like function currying and partial application out of the box, they can both be added by a library (funktionale). Kotlin has a focus on DSLs defined in libraries and has a few language features that are intended to make them work better, in this sense, Kotlin and Scala are similar.
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      Right, but by comparison Scala goes further than Kotlin on this. Consider the case of operators, for instance: Kotlin, like many languages, lets you redefined a predefined set of operators for new types with predefined precedence, Scala lets you create entirely new operators. To some, this is a strength for Scala -- to others, it is a weakness.

whateveracct 11y ago

What other features could someone even reasonably use though? I say this because what I listed above isn't some small subset of Scala. It's actually the majority of the language. Hmm I'll try to think of some features that we don't use at work that would add additional semantic overhead: - Inheritance? I mean okay but nobody I work with makes heavy use of this anyways and if I were working in a Scala shop where inheritance was used heavily it would be like working in a different language. So I suppose I'll give you that although I don't see how that makes the language hard to learn or work with. - Mutable collections + references (vars)? Once again nobody I work with uses these outside of local mutability when they fail to be able to leverage immutable abstractions that do the same thing. If I worked in a Scala shop where mutability was used without care, it would be like working in a different language entirely true. - while loops? I don't know what else I'm grasping for straws here. If anything, the additional 'complicated' things we use in Scala aren't language features but rather libraries, mostly scalaz/shapeless.

dragonwriter 11y ago
> If anything, the additional 'complicated' things we use in Scala aren't language features but rather libraries One thing with Scala is that various features of the language allow libraries to reshape the "feel" of the language, because a number of things that would be fixed in the language in many other languages can be modified by libraries in Scala.
- mike_hearn 11y ago
  Consider that whilst Kotlin does not support things like function currying and partial application out of the box, they can both be added by a library (funktionale). Kotlin has a focus on DSLs defined in libraries and has a few language features that are intended to make them work better, in this sense, Kotlin and Scala are similar.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    Right, but by comparison Scala goes further than Kotlin on this. Consider the case of operators, for instance: Kotlin, like many languages, lets you redefined a predefined set of operators for new types with predefined precedence, Scala lets you create entirely new operators. To some, this is a strength for Scala -- to others, it is a weakness.