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C++'s goal was to introduce a newly popular paradigm (oop) on top of an existing rich ecosystem (c). Scala's goal was to introduce a newly popular paradigm (fp)

by adrusi 11y ago

C++'s goal was to introduce a newly popular paradigm (oop) on top of an existing rich ecosystem (c). Scala's goal was to introduce a newly popular paradigm (fp) on top of an existing rich ecosystem (java). They both suffer from poor tooling, long compile times, and feature bloat with several predominant styles of writing it. To dismiss the similarities is disingenuous.

bad_user 11y ago
Yeah, both are programming languages. Objective-C was also built on top of C, with the same original purpose as C++, yet you couldn't find two other mainstream languages that differ so much. I can't really answer to your argument because it is superficial and there isn't anything in there to answer to. Whenever I ask folks what makes Scala complex or bloated, or what the conflicting "styles of writing it" are there, they always shy away. Because it's easier to be handwavy than it is to construct a good argument. Unfortunately handwavy arguments are subject to marketing and social forces. This is how people end up worshiping Python's spirit and included batteries, which must be some of the biggest lies in our industry, since I can name more non-orthogonal and half-baked features in Python than in Scala, plus several clusterfucks in its standard library and ecosystem, starting from the build management tools, the async-I/O libraries and the web libraries, all of them screaming anything else but "there is only one way to do it". But that's just the herd mentality in action.
- mike_hearn 11y ago
  If you would like a specific, concrete issue with Scala, I find its documentation to be extremely poor compared to Kotlin.
  - justthistime_ 11y ago
    It's easy to say "Kotlin has no projects with poor documentation" when it doesn't have many projects at all. :-) I think Scala library authors would love some links to those things where you consider the documentation to be lacking.
    - mike_hearn 11y ago
      I wasn't talking about projects written in the language, I was talking about the language itself.
- adrusi 11y ago
  On Objective-C: yes, it's quite different from C++; that's because it took a very different approach to integrating object oriented programming into C, and because it had a much more traditional (at the time) model of what object oriented programming was. Essentially, Objective-C adds a completely new language for object oriented code, one which has a very good zero-overhead C FFI and one which happens to be source compatible with C. C++ really tries to make one cohesive language, so that you don't have that dichotomy (although it doesn't always succeed when it comes to templates). Yes, Scala isn't exactly the C++ formula applied to java and functional programming; it doesn't, for example, strive for source compatability (C++ has to because of header files, it likely wouldn't otherwise). Whenever I ask folks what makes Scala complex or bloated, or what the conflicting "styles of writing it" are there, they always shy away. I don't think there's a good way to identify concrete examples for "bloatedness" because it's kind of a fundamentally handwavy concept. It's a feeling that you get while learning and using the language. One that people don't get with C, or Go, or Haskell or Scheme, but tend to get with Scala and C++ and Common Lisp, to name examples. Complexity is easier to point to though. The interaction of inheritance and generics, the mutability semantics, the fact that it's not clear from the call site when arguments get evaluated (with defered evaluation and macros), anything that can result from an abuse of implicits, mutability semantics. The various styles of writing Scala? Well there's the people who wanted to write Haskell but settled for Scala because it's what their bosses gave them, who write it with a lot of immutability and use the type system to a great extent. There's the people who wanted to write java but write Scala because their bosses make them, who write java in Scala because that's a totally viable way to do it. And there's a lot of people in the middle. Addressing your python point: I agree that the "there's only one way to do it" mantra is kind of wrong in pythonland, but there are a lot of conventions in that community that people adhere to that make it true in a way. This comes with a lot of dogma unfortunately. Other languages have fewer "non-orthogonal and half-baked" features. Go, for all its issues, doesn't have many of those because it seems its designers are content to just not have the features at all rather than have them be imperfect. C doesn't either, really, nor Haskell.
justthistime_ 11y ago
There so many things different in C++' approach compared to Scala that your whole comparison is disingenuous to begin with. I think I believe that such claims are unwarranted, mostly coming from beginners with a superficial understanding of the language fits fairly well here ...
frankzinger 11y ago
Regarding C++ having poor tooling: care to elaborate a little? Just one or two specific examples. I know the grammar is really difficult to parse and that has hindered static analyzers in the past, for example, but what else are you talking about? Also, how good or bad is clang's static analyzer compared to those of other languages?
pjmlp 11y ago
You got it wrong. C++ goal was that Bjarne didn't want to code ever again in plain C, after being forced to use it. It just felt wrong to him such a primitive language after his experience with Simula and other proper languages of the day. So when he joined AT&T, he started to work a way to have Simula for his work. Then the language grew from there. There a few Bjarne interviews were he tells this.

by adrusi 11y ago

bad_user 11y ago

Yeah, both are programming languages. Objective-C was also built on top of C, with the same original purpose as C++, yet you couldn't find two other mainstream languages that differ so much. I can't really answer to your argument because it is superficial and there isn't anything in there to answer to. Whenever I ask folks what makes Scala complex or bloated, or what the conflicting "styles of writing it" are there, they always shy away. Because it's easier to be handwavy than it is to construct a good argument. Unfortunately handwavy arguments are subject to marketing and social forces. This is how people end up worshiping Python's spirit and included batteries, which must be some of the biggest lies in our industry, since I can name more non-orthogonal and half-baked features in Python than in Scala, plus several clusterfucks in its standard library and ecosystem, starting from the build management tools, the async-I/O libraries and the web libraries, all of them screaming anything else but "there is only one way to do it". But that's just the herd mentality in action.

mike_hearn 11y ago
If you would like a specific, concrete issue with Scala, I find its documentation to be extremely poor compared to Kotlin.
- justthistime_ 11y ago
  It's easy to say "Kotlin has no projects with poor documentation" when it doesn't have many projects at all. :-) I think Scala library authors would love some links to those things where you consider the documentation to be lacking.
  - mike_hearn 11y ago
    I wasn't talking about projects written in the language, I was talking about the language itself.
adrusi 11y ago
On Objective-C: yes, it's quite different from C++; that's because it took a very different approach to integrating object oriented programming into C, and because it had a much more traditional (at the time) model of what object oriented programming was. Essentially, Objective-C adds a completely new language for object oriented code, one which has a very good zero-overhead C FFI and one which happens to be source compatible with C. C++ really tries to make one cohesive language, so that you don't have that dichotomy (although it doesn't always succeed when it comes to templates). Yes, Scala isn't exactly the C++ formula applied to java and functional programming; it doesn't, for example, strive for source compatability (C++ has to because of header files, it likely wouldn't otherwise). Whenever I ask folks what makes Scala complex or bloated, or what the conflicting "styles of writing it" are there, they always shy away. I don't think there's a good way to identify concrete examples for "bloatedness" because it's kind of a fundamentally handwavy concept. It's a feeling that you get while learning and using the language. One that people don't get with C, or Go, or Haskell or Scheme, but tend to get with Scala and C++ and Common Lisp, to name examples. Complexity is easier to point to though. The interaction of inheritance and generics, the mutability semantics, the fact that it's not clear from the call site when arguments get evaluated (with defered evaluation and macros), anything that can result from an abuse of implicits, mutability semantics. The various styles of writing Scala? Well there's the people who wanted to write Haskell but settled for Scala because it's what their bosses gave them, who write it with a lot of immutability and use the type system to a great extent. There's the people who wanted to write java but write Scala because their bosses make them, who write java in Scala because that's a totally viable way to do it. And there's a lot of people in the middle. Addressing your python point: I agree that the "there's only one way to do it" mantra is kind of wrong in pythonland, but there are a lot of conventions in that community that people adhere to that make it true in a way. This comes with a lot of dogma unfortunately. Other languages have fewer "non-orthogonal and half-baked" features. Go, for all its issues, doesn't have many of those because it seems its designers are content to just not have the features at all rather than have them be imperfect. C doesn't either, really, nor Haskell.

justthistime_ 11y ago

There so many things different in C++' approach compared to Scala that your whole comparison is disingenuous to begin with. I think I believe that such claims are unwarranted, mostly coming from beginners with a superficial understanding of the language fits fairly well here ...

frankzinger 11y ago

Regarding C++ having poor tooling: care to elaborate a little? Just one or two specific examples. I know the grammar is really difficult to parse and that has hindered static analyzers in the past, for example, but what else are you talking about? Also, how good or bad is clang's static analyzer compared to those of other languages?

pjmlp 11y ago

You got it wrong. C++ goal was that Bjarne didn't want to code ever again in plain C, after being forced to use it. It just felt wrong to him such a primitive language after his experience with Simula and other proper languages of the day. So when he joined AT&T, he started to work a way to have Simula for his work. Then the language grew from there. There a few Bjarne interviews were he tells this.