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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

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.
        eeperson 11y ago
        I can think of some very good reasons to suggest SBT to beginners. Probably the most useful features, in this regard, is that a folder with some Scala files in it is a valid SBT project. You don't even need a build configuration file. This is substantially less work than setting up a Scala project through Gradle, Maven, Ant or an IDE. Also, if you use SBT through Activator[1] you get project templates and an automatically configured IDE. [1] - https://www.lightbend.com/community/core-tools/activator-and-sbt https://www.lightbend.com/community/core-tools/activator-and...
        11y ago
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.

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.
      - eeperson 11y ago
        I can think of some very good reasons to suggest SBT to beginners. Probably the most useful features, in this regard, is that a folder with some Scala files in it is a valid SBT project. You don't even need a build configuration file. This is substantially less work than setting up a Scala project through Gradle, Maven, Ant or an IDE. Also, if you use SBT through Activator[1] you get project templates and an automatically configured IDE. [1] - https://www.lightbend.com/community/core-tools/activator-and-sbt https://www.lightbend.com/community/core-tools/activator-and...
        11y ago

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.