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I think it's rather significantly different. The range of inputs to a function in Scala are Some[T], None, and null, whereas in Kotlin they become T and null. K

I think it's rather significantly different. The range of inputs to a function in Scala are Some[T], None, and null, whereas in Kotlin they become T and null. Kotlin also uses annotations that exist in libraries--and it understands a lot of them--to turn T! into T or T? directly when it can, which Scala doesn't. Can you explain how this is so similar to Scala in a way that leaves it up to you to be contemptuous and spit stuff like "nonsense" at people looking to discuss the topic in good faith?

lmm 8y ago
> The range of inputs to a function in Scala are Some[T], None, and null null is not a legitimate value in Scala. There is no reason to ever use it in a legitimate program; in a situation where you would use null in Kotlin, you use None in Scala. The languages are exactly equivalent (except that Kotlin has confusing inconsistent behaviour when you start nesting possibly-absent types, particularly in the presence of generics), people just get confused because they fixate on the literal source string "null" (and Kotlin marketing encourages this confusion). If you really can't stop yourself from typing n-u-l-l for some reason, use wartremover. > Kotlin also uses annotations that exist in libraries--and it understands a lot of them--to turn T! into T or T? directly when it can, which Scala doesn't. Those annotations are often unchecked and therefore unreliable, in the cases where they're even present at all (which are unlikely to be the cases where you need to interop with Java - popular mainstream libraries have them, but those are precisely the libraries for which there tends to be a native Kotlin/Scala replacement available). In any case, the original article is talking about the case where there aren't such annotations. > Can you explain how this is so similar to Scala in a way that leaves it up to you to be contemptuous and spit stuff like "nonsense" at people looking to discuss the topic in good faith? Sorry. I've seen enough bad faith from Kotlin people on this topic (and when talking about Scala generally) that I find myself unable to assume good faith.

lmm 8y ago

> The range of inputs to a function in Scala are Some[T], None, and null null is not a legitimate value in Scala. There is no reason to ever use it in a legitimate program; in a situation where you would use null in Kotlin, you use None in Scala. The languages are exactly equivalent (except that Kotlin has confusing inconsistent behaviour when you start nesting possibly-absent types, particularly in the presence of generics), people just get confused because they fixate on the literal source string "null" (and Kotlin marketing encourages this confusion). If you really can't stop yourself from typing n-u-l-l for some reason, use wartremover. > Kotlin also uses annotations that exist in libraries--and it understands a lot of them--to turn T! into T or T? directly when it can, which Scala doesn't. Those annotations are often unchecked and therefore unreliable, in the cases where they're even present at all (which are unlikely to be the cases where you need to interop with Java - popular mainstream libraries have them, but those are precisely the libraries for which there tends to be a native Kotlin/Scala replacement available). In any case, the original article is talking about the case where there aren't such annotations. > Can you explain how this is so similar to Scala in a way that leaves it up to you to be contemptuous and spit stuff like "nonsense" at people looking to discuss the topic in good faith? Sorry. I've seen enough bad faith from Kotlin people on this topic (and when talking about Scala generally) that I find myself unable to assume good faith.