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> This is a common meme, but I'd like to see some robust empirical evidence either way I wouldn't call that datapoint robust nor empirical, but Scala developer

> This is a common meme, but I'd like to see some robust empirical evidence either way I wouldn't call that datapoint robust nor empirical, but Scala developers have been complaining about the slowness of their builds for more than ten years now, and it's pretty much accepted that the Scala compiler will never get marginally faster than it is today. The Scala 3 compiler is not looking much better either.

chriswarbo 8y ago
That sounds like the compiler vs interpreter flamewar, rather than the strong vs weak or static vs dynamic typing flamewars ;) Is there a Scala interpreter to compare performance against? I've not used Scala much, but I know that while Haskell's de facto implementation is the Glasgow Haskell Compiler, there are also (unmaintained) interpreters like HUGS, so compilation isn't a necessity. Plus there's the whole spectrum of Futamura projections, JITs, etc. ;)
cinnamonheart 8y ago
Scala's builds from fresh are slow, but this is never a hindrance during development; you just leave `sbt ~compile` running in a terminal, which gives you constant feedback. I find in this case the type system of Scala allows you to quickly reach a sensible solution using the compiler and types to guide you. This allows faster shipping, not slower.
Drup 8y ago
What does that has to do with type systems? OCaml is one of the fastest compiler around, and yet it has a very rich type system. Julia also has a very rich type system, but is interpreted/JITed. Many compilers are very slow, even thought their typecheckers barely does anything. The speed of the compiler is related to the design of both the language and the compiler as a whole, not the presence or absence of a decent type system. I would even argue that one of the point to recognize a well designed type system is that it's conceived in a way that admit fast typechecking.

chriswarbo 8y ago

That sounds like the compiler vs interpreter flamewar, rather than the strong vs weak or static vs dynamic typing flamewars ;) Is there a Scala interpreter to compare performance against? I've not used Scala much, but I know that while Haskell's de facto implementation is the Glasgow Haskell Compiler, there are also (unmaintained) interpreters like HUGS, so compilation isn't a necessity. Plus there's the whole spectrum of Futamura projections, JITs, etc. ;)

cinnamonheart 8y ago

Scala's builds from fresh are slow, but this is never a hindrance during development; you just leave `sbt ~compile` running in a terminal, which gives you constant feedback. I find in this case the type system of Scala allows you to quickly reach a sensible solution using the compiler and types to guide you. This allows faster shipping, not slower.

Drup 8y ago

What does that has to do with type systems? OCaml is one of the fastest compiler around, and yet it has a very rich type system. Julia also has a very rich type system, but is interpreted/JITed. Many compilers are very slow, even thought their typecheckers barely does anything. The speed of the compiler is related to the design of both the language and the compiler as a whole, not the presence or absence of a decent type system. I would even argue that one of the point to recognize a well designed type system is that it's conceived in a way that admit fast typechecking.