6 ms·

Martin Odersky on Scala and Clojure

103 points by swannodette 16y ago

mark_l_watson 16y ago
Interesting interview, especially the comment about any industrial success of a functional language helps other functional languages. I spent a year trying to decide whether Clojure or Scala would be my "new, better Java or JVM language." Clojure won, for me, because I sometimes get hired to do Lisp development, so some Clojure work has also come my way. Unfortunately, I have never had any consulting offers to work with Scala so the consulting market made the decision for me on which language to put more effort in learning.
- ithkuil 16y ago
  I tried to get into scala, but the 2.8 release cycle instability was a brake for me. I trust that scala guys had to do what they did, but this kind of revolutions shouldn't happen too frequently, especially when the languages matures. still waiting for the porting of lift to 2.8 so that I can use lift and akka together. On the other hand, very fruitful experience with clojure. Even moving from 1.0, to 1.1 and now to 1.2.
  - cageface 16y ago
    The changes have been a little painful but overall I think the Scala team is taking the right approach in fixing obvious design mistakes now while it's still possible to do so. As I'm getting more familiar with the new collections library I'm enjoying it a lot. I can write code that's as concise and expressive as Ruby but with the advantages of static type checking and much, much better performance.
    - whakojacko 16y ago
      Yea, the new collections library is great once you can get used to it. I agree that now was a much better time to make big changes than further down the road
    - j_baker 16y ago
      Yeah, but did they break backwards compatibility? If so, that isn't something I would expect in a .1 update when al language is at version 2.
      - jorgeortiz85 16y ago
        Scala does not follow the usual version number conventions. Scala 2 was a total re-write from Scala 1 (the compiler was ported from Java to Scala). Scala 2.8 is a major, backwards-incompatible release with Scala 2.7. Scala 2.8.x releases will be at least backwards source-compatible. (Binary compatibility is more challenging in Scala, because of how traits work, but the Scala team is allegedly tackling this problem for 2.8.1. We'll see.)
      - eeperson 16y ago
        They decided to make some backwards incompatible changes after they had already announced 2.8 as the next release. They would have made it 3.0 but everybody was already calling the next release 2.8.
- narrator 16y ago
  I find Indeed.com to be a fairly objective indicator as to the job market for a particular language: http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=scala+developer,+clojure+developer&l= http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=scala+developer,+clojure+d...
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=scala+developer%2C+clojure+developer%2C+java+developer&l= http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=scala+developer%2C+clojure... ouch.
    - limist 16y ago
      Ah, but it's all relative, :) http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=scala+developer%2C+clojure+developer%2C+java+developer&l=&relative=1 http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=scala+developer%2C+clojure...
      - jacquesm 16y ago
        There's lies, damned lies and statistics...
        10ren 16y ago
        Amazingly, Java is still growing http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=+java+developer&l=&relative=1 http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=+java+developer&l=&#38... This is probably acting as a proxy for growth in programming jobs and IT in general.
    - cageface 16y ago
      Just about every programming language looks like baseline noise compared to Java. Still, there's no denying these are both still very much niche languages.
      - fogus 16y ago
        As is functional programming in general. But it's growing.
cageface 16y ago
I really enjoy both languages so it's great to hear an affirmation of this from Martin. Scala and Clojure compete only in the sense that I only have enough free time to really dig into one or the other but the approaches are different enough that they can certainly co-exist.
- stevejohnson 16y ago
  I feel the same way about Ruby and Python.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    I'm not sure that that is a valid side-by-side, python by no means is a success because of Django but I'm fairly sure that lots of people would have never used Ruby if it weren't for rails.
    - cageface 16y ago
      Popularity is a totally orthogonal issue. In any case, like Scala and Clojure, both languages are now reasonable choices for new development or study.
dpritchett 16y ago
Looks like we'd better add Dr. Odersky as another possibility for the mystery foreword in Joy of Clojure.
AndrewO 16y ago
I especially liked the joke at the end. It came through as playful dig at one of the key design differences between the languages and was answered in that spirit. Kudos to both of them.
DanielRibeiro 16y ago
It is really great we have this diversity on languages nowadays, and that important aspects such functional programming, dsl support, and readability is being considered more seriously by both language designers and developers alike. Vive la différence!

103 points by swannodette 16y ago

Interesting interview, especially the comment about any industrial success of a functional language helps other functional languages. I spent a year trying to decide whether Clojure or Scala would be my "new, better Java or JVM language." Clojure won, for me, because I sometimes get hired to do Lisp development, so some Clojure work has also come my way. Unfortunately, I have never had any consulting offers to work with Scala so the consulting market made the decision for me on which language to put more effort in learning.

ithkuil 16y ago
I tried to get into scala, but the 2.8 release cycle instability was a brake for me. I trust that scala guys had to do what they did, but this kind of revolutions shouldn't happen too frequently, especially when the languages matures. still waiting for the porting of lift to 2.8 so that I can use lift and akka together. On the other hand, very fruitful experience with clojure. Even moving from 1.0, to 1.1 and now to 1.2.
- cageface 16y ago
  The changes have been a little painful but overall I think the Scala team is taking the right approach in fixing obvious design mistakes now while it's still possible to do so. As I'm getting more familiar with the new collections library I'm enjoying it a lot. I can write code that's as concise and expressive as Ruby but with the advantages of static type checking and much, much better performance.
  - whakojacko 16y ago
    Yea, the new collections library is great once you can get used to it. I agree that now was a much better time to make big changes than further down the road
  - j_baker 16y ago
    Yeah, but did they break backwards compatibility? If so, that isn't something I would expect in a .1 update when al language is at version 2.
    - jorgeortiz85 16y ago
      Scala does not follow the usual version number conventions. Scala 2 was a total re-write from Scala 1 (the compiler was ported from Java to Scala). Scala 2.8 is a major, backwards-incompatible release with Scala 2.7. Scala 2.8.x releases will be at least backwards source-compatible. (Binary compatibility is more challenging in Scala, because of how traits work, but the Scala team is allegedly tackling this problem for 2.8.1. We'll see.)
    - eeperson 16y ago
      They decided to make some backwards incompatible changes after they had already announced 2.8 as the next release. They would have made it 3.0 but everybody was already calling the next release 2.8.
narrator 16y ago
I find Indeed.com to be a fairly objective indicator as to the job market for a particular language: http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=scala+developer,+clojure+developer&l= http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=scala+developer,+clojure+d...
- jacquesm 16y ago
  http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=scala+developer%2C+clojure+developer%2C+java+developer&l= http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=scala+developer%2C+clojure... ouch.
  - limist 16y ago
    Ah, but it's all relative, :) http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=scala+developer%2C+clojure+developer%2C+java+developer&l=&relative=1 http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=scala+developer%2C+clojure...
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      There's lies, damned lies and statistics...
      - 10ren 16y ago
        Amazingly, Java is still growing http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=+java+developer&l=&relative=1 http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=+java+developer&l=&#38... This is probably acting as a proxy for growth in programming jobs and IT in general.
  - cageface 16y ago
    Just about every programming language looks like baseline noise compared to Java. Still, there's no denying these are both still very much niche languages.
    - fogus 16y ago
      As is functional programming in general. But it's growing.

cageface 16y ago

I really enjoy both languages so it's great to hear an affirmation of this from Martin. Scala and Clojure compete only in the sense that I only have enough free time to really dig into one or the other but the approaches are different enough that they can certainly co-exist.

stevejohnson 16y ago
I feel the same way about Ruby and Python.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  I'm not sure that that is a valid side-by-side, python by no means is a success because of Django but I'm fairly sure that lots of people would have never used Ruby if it weren't for rails.
  - cageface 16y ago
    Popularity is a totally orthogonal issue. In any case, like Scala and Clojure, both languages are now reasonable choices for new development or study.

dpritchett 16y ago

Looks like we'd better add Dr. Odersky as another possibility for the mystery foreword in Joy of Clojure.

AndrewO 16y ago

I especially liked the joke at the end. It came through as playful dig at one of the key design differences between the languages and was answered in that spirit. Kudos to both of them.

DanielRibeiro 16y ago

It is really great we have this diversity on languages nowadays, and that important aspects such functional programming, dsl support, and readability is being considered more seriously by both language designers and developers alike. Vive la différence!