6 ms·

This might be true, but I don't think it is hard as the general opinion is. I think it's mostly about the technique and patience. You can't expect miracles at o

by salex89 11y ago

This might be true, but I don't think it is hard as the general opinion is. I think it's mostly about the technique and patience. You can't expect miracles at once or a wow factor. I generally started using it for smaller projects or parts where I could experiment a bit, and started using it as a better Java. I also played CodinGame with Scala. As things caught pace I started evolving it a bit and looking into refactoring and so on. Too be honest, I'm not too advanced, but I kinda like the pace. Word of warning: Java is still my main language at work, but the language choice is not my decision. However, whatever happens with Scala or me in the future, one thing stays, I became a better Java developer because of Scala. Also, the colleagues got interested after looking into some Akka Streaming apps :D .

argonaut 11y ago
But compare this to someone's experience with Python, Ruby, JavaScript, Go, or (maybe) Rust, where they are much more rapidly productive, and they actually have that immediate wow factor. I think this may also apply to "lighter"-weight Scala alternatives like Kotlin/Ceylon one day, depending on their adoption. So I think Scala pales on this dimension relative to its competition.
- jinst8gmi 11y ago
  It's a lot like learning SVN vs Git, SVN requires fewer steps to do a commit so you can be "productive" faster. Once you learn Git though you won't care that it took you a bit longer to learn. Prioritizing being productive immediately and instant gratification isn't always the best in the long term.
  - argonaut 11y ago
    That's a pretty bad example. Git is widely considered [1] to be overly complex and difficult to learn compared to something like Mercurial. The advantage Git has is its dominance in terms of adoption/community. Scala does not have juggernaut dominance in programming languahes. [1] I acknowledge this is debatable, but it's an opinion I agree with.
- lmm 11y ago
  You can be just as productive as you would be in Python/Ruby/JavaScript/Go from day 1 in Scala - usually the same code will work, with minor syntax differences and maybe the occasional type annotation. The difference is there's more to learn in Scala that will make you even more productive, but that should never be a downside, and you don't have to learn it if you don't want to.
  - argonaut 11y ago
    You are really stretching things by saying you'd be productive on day 1. Scala code has an immediate upfront complexity cost.
    - lmm 11y ago
      I am speaking from direct personal experience. Explicit effect sequencing is optional (in contrast to Haskell), traditional OO with inheritance is available. You may not be able to read all the standard library type signatures on day 1 but the documentation is adequate without them. Anything you could do in Python/Ruby/Javascript translates directly; in the very short term I guess not having a single baked-into-the-language concurrency model like Go is a disadvantage, but the use case where you'd need that on day 1 is pretty rare.
      - JackFr 11y ago
        I have found that the issue isn't the language, it's the ecosystem. If you're coming from Java environment set up is not such a big deal, but if your brand new it is not as easy as other languages.
        lmm 11y ago
        There are certainly poor libraries and bad advice going around (why people tell beginners to use SBT or ScalaTest is beyond me), but that happens in every language. IME the average quality on maven central is if anything better than on PyPi/rubygems/npm/etc., and the IDEs/profilers/debuggers are better than anything you can get for the other languages.
- JackFr 11y ago
  Not familiar with Go or Rust, but the issue with newcomers to Scala, as compared to Python, Ruby, Javascript is one of the ecosystem rather than the language. While that's very off-putting to newcomers, it hopefully is a one-time cost amortized of the life of your language use.

by salex89 11y ago

argonaut 11y ago

But compare this to someone's experience with Python, Ruby, JavaScript, Go, or (maybe) Rust, where they are much more rapidly productive, and they actually have that immediate wow factor. I think this may also apply to "lighter"-weight Scala alternatives like Kotlin/Ceylon one day, depending on their adoption. So I think Scala pales on this dimension relative to its competition.

jinst8gmi 11y ago
It's a lot like learning SVN vs Git, SVN requires fewer steps to do a commit so you can be "productive" faster. Once you learn Git though you won't care that it took you a bit longer to learn. Prioritizing being productive immediately and instant gratification isn't always the best in the long term.
- argonaut 11y ago
  That's a pretty bad example. Git is widely considered [1] to be overly complex and difficult to learn compared to something like Mercurial. The advantage Git has is its dominance in terms of adoption/community. Scala does not have juggernaut dominance in programming languahes. [1] I acknowledge this is debatable, but it's an opinion I agree with.
lmm 11y ago
You can be just as productive as you would be in Python/Ruby/JavaScript/Go from day 1 in Scala - usually the same code will work, with minor syntax differences and maybe the occasional type annotation. The difference is there's more to learn in Scala that will make you even more productive, but that should never be a downside, and you don't have to learn it if you don't want to.
- argonaut 11y ago
  You are really stretching things by saying you'd be productive on day 1. Scala code has an immediate upfront complexity cost.
  - lmm 11y ago
    I am speaking from direct personal experience. Explicit effect sequencing is optional (in contrast to Haskell), traditional OO with inheritance is available. You may not be able to read all the standard library type signatures on day 1 but the documentation is adequate without them. Anything you could do in Python/Ruby/Javascript translates directly; in the very short term I guess not having a single baked-into-the-language concurrency model like Go is a disadvantage, but the use case where you'd need that on day 1 is pretty rare.
    - JackFr 11y ago
      I have found that the issue isn't the language, it's the ecosystem. If you're coming from Java environment set up is not such a big deal, but if your brand new it is not as easy as other languages.
      - lmm 11y ago
        There are certainly poor libraries and bad advice going around (why people tell beginners to use SBT or ScalaTest is beyond me), but that happens in every language. IME the average quality on maven central is if anything better than on PyPi/rubygems/npm/etc., and the IDEs/profilers/debuggers are better than anything you can get for the other languages.
JackFr 11y ago
Not familiar with Go or Rust, but the issue with newcomers to Scala, as compared to Python, Ruby, Javascript is one of the ecosystem rather than the language. While that's very off-putting to newcomers, it hopefully is a one-time cost amortized of the life of your language use.