4 ms·

Swift is statically typed (Elixir isn't) with a good type system (Go hasn't) and doesn't run in a VM (like Scala or Kotlin). I don't know how good its concurren

by aikah 10y ago

Swift is statically typed (Elixir isn't) with a good type system (Go hasn't) and doesn't run in a VM (like Scala or Kotlin). I don't know how good its concurrency is and on how many platforms it is available though. It also looks like the language itself is still not that stable which is in my opinion a no go.

pjmlp 10y ago
Scala and Kotlin both have projects for AOT compilation to native code. You can also get it today with any commercial JDK like Excelsior JET.
- iheartmemcache 10y ago
  Yep, and as a result of this, the JDK ecosystem is healthy as ever. N.b to those who have only written web or phone apps for a living -- GC latency isn't 'bad' in most cases - unpredictable latency is what's bad. Having a deterministic upper-bound is what is important in the enterprise, on your aviation component regulating cabin pressure, on your SWIFT bank transfer. Also, see the top comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11759762 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11759762 for a JDK discussion against ref-counting, along with this [now incredibly old] paper https://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/hosking/690M/urc-oopsla-2003.pdf https://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/hosking/690M/urc-oopsla-2003... (N.b. around the time that paper was published, I was in HFT. We used Azul C4 and it just fine to crush even with management taking their typical 30/3 fees. Though to be fair, this was when the easy pickin's were still there to be plucked. Don't underestimate how well good-ol' free Hotspot is now; we're not talking 1996 Jakarta days with Swing)
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    One of the reasons I always argue for GC is that I used Native Oberon, and also collect papers related to Xerox PARC and DEC research. Modern hardware would be a dream to any of those researchers doing systems programming in GC enabled languages. I only consider the biggest flaws of Java not adopting AOT from the beginning and the lack of value types. Now the JDK ecosystem needs to wait until Java 10, probably around 2020 or later, to get them.
- virtualwhys 10y ago
  > Scala and Kotlin both have projects for AOT compilation to native code Not sure about Kotlin (stable version of the language was only recently released; more likely a stable JS target is higher on the priority list), but Scala Native isn't production ready, will likely be at least a year from now; same goes for Scala Meta, and Dotty's even further out, minimum 2 years away. Swift has a head start here, and a huge captive audience in legions of iOS developers -- unlikely that Scala will be able to compete on the native front directly. More likely Scala.js + React Native may draw some from the JS developer pool that want to take advantage of static types and seamless client-server interop that can be had via Scala/Scala.js today.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    You missed the part that AOT native compilers for JVM languages already exist today, but I accept that people don't want to pay for them.
    - virtualwhys 10y ago
      Sure, was just pointing out that no such native ports exist for Scala or Kotlin that are anywhere near production ready. In fact, it appears that a Kotlin Native project exists in the sense that a blog post exists that announced a native target is something they're looking into implementing down the road -- hardly a project ;-) Scala Native's been under heavy development for over a year now[1], and even then it's a long way off. [1] https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/graphs/contributors https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/graphs/contribu...

by aikah 10y ago

pjmlp 10y ago

Scala and Kotlin both have projects for AOT compilation to native code. You can also get it today with any commercial JDK like Excelsior JET.

iheartmemcache 10y ago
Yep, and as a result of this, the JDK ecosystem is healthy as ever. N.b to those who have only written web or phone apps for a living -- GC latency isn't 'bad' in most cases - unpredictable latency is what's bad. Having a deterministic upper-bound is what is important in the enterprise, on your aviation component regulating cabin pressure, on your SWIFT bank transfer. Also, see the top comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11759762 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11759762 for a JDK discussion against ref-counting, along with this [now incredibly old] paper https://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/hosking/690M/urc-oopsla-2003.pdf https://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/hosking/690M/urc-oopsla-2003... (N.b. around the time that paper was published, I was in HFT. We used Azul C4 and it just fine to crush even with management taking their typical 30/3 fees. Though to be fair, this was when the easy pickin's were still there to be plucked. Don't underestimate how well good-ol' free Hotspot is now; we're not talking 1996 Jakarta days with Swing)
- pjmlp 10y ago
  One of the reasons I always argue for GC is that I used Native Oberon, and also collect papers related to Xerox PARC and DEC research. Modern hardware would be a dream to any of those researchers doing systems programming in GC enabled languages. I only consider the biggest flaws of Java not adopting AOT from the beginning and the lack of value types. Now the JDK ecosystem needs to wait until Java 10, probably around 2020 or later, to get them.
virtualwhys 10y ago
> Scala and Kotlin both have projects for AOT compilation to native code Not sure about Kotlin (stable version of the language was only recently released; more likely a stable JS target is higher on the priority list), but Scala Native isn't production ready, will likely be at least a year from now; same goes for Scala Meta, and Dotty's even further out, minimum 2 years away. Swift has a head start here, and a huge captive audience in legions of iOS developers -- unlikely that Scala will be able to compete on the native front directly. More likely Scala.js + React Native may draw some from the JS developer pool that want to take advantage of static types and seamless client-server interop that can be had via Scala/Scala.js today.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  You missed the part that AOT native compilers for JVM languages already exist today, but I accept that people don't want to pay for them.
  - virtualwhys 10y ago
    Sure, was just pointing out that no such native ports exist for Scala or Kotlin that are anywhere near production ready. In fact, it appears that a Kotlin Native project exists in the sense that a blog post exists that announced a native target is something they're looking into implementing down the road -- hardly a project ;-) Scala Native's been under heavy development for over a year now[1], and even then it's a long way off. [1] https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/graphs/contributors https://github.com/scala-native/scala-native/graphs/contribu...