5 ms·

It's actually smaller and simpler than Java or C++ as far as I know. It's designed to have fewer edge cases and employ a smaller number of powerful features ins

by henning 16y ago

It's actually smaller and simpler than Java or C++ as far as I know. It's designed to have fewer edge cases and employ a smaller number of powerful features instead of many less-expressive ones. It's interesting that you use the word "scare." It's a computer language. What's there to be afraid of?

nimrody 16y ago
With great power and complexity comes great responsibility. Not many people can write decent C++ programs given the complexity of the language. It's pretty easy to abuse the power and write horrible code. Currently Scala is less affected, since there are not many users at this pont. I'd say this group consists of more sophisticated users, too.
jamesaguilar 16y ago
> It's interesting that you use the word "scare." It's a computer language. What's there to be afraid of? I guess you haven't read very much C++ code. :P With respect to the intent of its design versus the outcome, I can think of a few things that have been difficult for me in my playing with Scala. Implicit parameters, type parameters in general, especially the <: and >: operators, and some things like :/ and Ordering.by have confounded me quite a bit. The limited nature of its point-free style is also kind of difficult to get in -- IMO, they should have left that out entirely because two ways to do something is often worse than one. The distinction between = and = { at the end of method declarations, when you do and don't have to put parens on a no-arg method, and various other little quirks of the syntax are also a little annoying. Don't get me wrong. I'd far rather program in Scala than C++ on a day to day basis. But, it seems quite large to me. It's a subjective measure, but that's my assessment as a professional C++ programmer and a beginner Scala programmer.

5 ms·

It's actually smaller and simpler than Java or C++ as far as I know. It's designed to have fewer edge cases and employ a smaller number of powerful features ins

by henning 16y ago

nimrody 16y ago
With great power and complexity comes great responsibility. Not many people can write decent C++ programs given the complexity of the language. It's pretty easy to abuse the power and write horrible code. Currently Scala is less affected, since there are not many users at this pont. I'd say this group consists of more sophisticated users, too.
jamesaguilar 16y ago
> It's interesting that you use the word "scare." It's a computer language. What's there to be afraid of? I guess you haven't read very much C++ code. :P With respect to the intent of its design versus the outcome, I can think of a few things that have been difficult for me in my playing with Scala. Implicit parameters, type parameters in general, especially the <: and >: operators, and some things like :/ and Ordering.by have confounded me quite a bit. The limited nature of its point-free style is also kind of difficult to get in -- IMO, they should have left that out entirely because two ways to do something is often worse than one. The distinction between = and = { at the end of method declarations, when you do and don't have to put parens on a no-arg method, and various other little quirks of the syntax are also a little annoying. Don't get me wrong. I'd far rather program in Scala than C++ on a day to day basis. But, it seems quite large to me. It's a subjective measure, but that's my assessment as a professional C++ programmer and a beginner Scala programmer.