6 ms·

A Year Of Scala

53 points by DanielRibeiro 16y ago

code_duck 16y ago
Great article. I've been learning Scala for a while now as time allows, and have had similar experiences - the syntax is tricky at first, and much of the community focuses on CS esoterica that isn't familiar to me, but the major concepts are quite familiar, coming from Python, Scheme and JavaScript. I'm still looking forward to my moment of epiphany when I realize I've become vaguely competent with Scala.
- sharednothing 16y ago
  Scala is the C++ of the JVM based languages.
  - runT1ME 16y ago
    I disagree completely. C was a well designed language that was later added onto haphazardly and you ended up with C++. The Scala language designers took a long time examining the shortcomings of java and other languages and ended up improving them, and at the same time coming up witha much smaller language specification. If anything, Java was the C++ and Scala is the C.
    - sharednothing 16y ago
      Please point out the "shortcomings" of Java. It has done quite well and provably "scales" from programming in the small to enterprise level. Even the required detour of multi-core resulted in the industry's gold standard of memory models: JMM. "Much smaller language specification" is a red herring. The issue is (practical) comprehension. "C was a well designed language that was later added onto haphazardly and you ended up with C++." http://www.amazon.com/Design-Evolution-C-Bjarne-Stroustrup/dp/0201543303 http://www.amazon.com/Design-Evolution-C-Bjarne-Stroustrup/d... I've read that book. (Have you?) Nothing "haphazard" about C++.
      - runT1ME 16y ago
        Shortcomings: Generics. Lack of closures. Please tell me how those are not shortcomings. >Even the required detour of multi-core resulted in the industry's gold standard of memory models: JMM. Which has absolutely zero to do with java the language. Did you forget what we were talking about in your second sentence?
        sharednothing 16y ago
        We were discussing the "mistakes" made by the Java design team. JMM is one of their products. It is relevant to mention this fact as it supports the claim that the responsible parties have generally been also quite brilliant folks.
      - code_duck 16y ago
        I consider verbosity and lack of closures to be shortcomings of Java. Apparently, so did the author of the article here.
        sharednothing 16y ago
        Its perfectly fine to note that Java can be verbose and that it does not fully support closures. It is perfectly fine to consider these "shortcomings". However, in context of OP's comment above, the strong suggestion made was that shorcoming == poorly designed. And that is a completely wrong assessment of Java and its designers. It is an exceptionally well thought out system and language. Again, the proof is in the pudding. Google and Oracle are not fighting over scala ...
        jimbokun 16y ago
        If issues such as verbosity and whether or not to have closures are not part of the language design process, then what is?
        sharednothing 16y ago
sharednothing 16y ago
"I was tired of writing code like this over and over again." This is getting tiring: public class MyGraphThingee extends Graph<Foo, Bar>
- zoul 16y ago
  Doesn’t this issue mostly go away when using a decent editor? I also found out that while I don’t particularly enjoy writing boilerplate code, it gives me a second to rest my brain, relax, think about the context etc. I think I like the resulting "rhythm changes".
  - sharednothing 16y ago
    Judging by the upvotes, the comment was misread. The point was that it is trivial to extend the generalization to avoid verbose references and type names.
    - Luyt 16y ago
      Does Java have typedefs nowadays?
      - sharednothing 16y ago
        No. Don't need them. https://gist.github.com/755824 https://gist.github.com/755824
        veemjeem 16y ago
        are you some kind of java troll?
        sharednothing 16y ago
        The day that CODE posted to HN to address gaps in knowledge of someone (OP) who complains about "typing all those brackets" gets downvotes, and an entirely ad-hominum comment (yours) contributing zip to the discussion gets upvotes is the day that I am indeed a "Java troll".
Create 16y ago
http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_45_0/libs/graph/doc/using_property_maps.html http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_45_0/libs/graph/doc/using_pr...
Homunculiheaded 16y ago
As someone who has spend a fair amount of time with Haskell, Scheme, Common Lisp etc, can someone give me some insight into what's really exciting about Scala? There seem to be a lot of people I respect using it, but most of the articles I've read are of the form "coming from Java, Scala is awesome!" which I haven't found particularly enticing. Every time I look at examples I don't really see anything that sticks out as particularly interesting. I really want to get excited about Scala, and would really appreciate any insight that would help me with this.
- sorenbs 16y ago
  Being able to do all your cool stuff in the usually boring enterprise world is the interesting part. If you don't need to integrate with container dit or java product dat there is no real need for scala.
- z0r 16y ago
  Just the pleasures of a powerful type system, inference, pattern matching, higher order functions... The usual good stuff, but on the JVM. I was paid to learn and program in it for a good five months earlier this year (everything ended up getting ported to python later...) and yes, it basically boils down to "coming from Java, Scala is awesome". If you have to build on top of the JVM and the Java ecosystem of libraries, it is a fine choice.
  - krosaen 16y ago
    Which do you prefer? Python or Scala?
    - z0r 16y ago
      I enjoyed writing Scala more than I enjoy writing Python, but there are a few undeniable advantages that Python holds over Scala. The motivation to port from Scala to Python was to avoid the lengthy build process that had been slowing down development to a crawl. There may have been other ways to alleviate this, but by the time the port was completed, it took a good 15 - 20 minutes to get the build machine to compile and package the entire project so it could be deployed to production. At this time rapid fixes were critical. Also, the team as a whole prefers Python to Scala... I took pleasure in learning how to express my code in increasingly functional and compact ways, but my coworkers found struggling with the type system to be too much of a headache. In particular, there are rough edges when you are integrating Scala code with Scala types and data structures with Java code with Java types and data structures. In any case it will be easier to find programmers who write in Python than those who might write Scala. Scala gave me more personal pleasure to write in, but Python isn't bad either. I miss the type system and the many classes of errors it could help prevent at compile time, but I appreciate being able to change Python code and put it to the test immediately. The loss of expressiveness is probably made up in part by being forced to write code that is more easily read. I still hope I will be able to find a job writing in a functional language in the future...
mike4u2 16y ago
I did a few spare time projects with Scala, but does (did) anyone use it for commercial applications? If so, what kind?
- harryh 16y ago
  I decided to implement (nearly) all of foursquare.com in scala.
  - codexon 16y ago
    Do you have any problems with GC pauses?
    - harryh 16y ago
      Yes, on occasion. We've combatted this in a couple of different ways: 1) Rewriting code to make fewer memory allocations or, in some cases, allocate memory for shorter periods of time (so it doesn't get promoted to a longer lived heap) 2) Garden variety GC tuning. Tune the various heap sizes, and GC algorithms used.
- lylejohnson 16y ago
  Aren't parts of Twitter in Scala now?
  - DanielRibeiro 16y ago
    Yes. And lots of it is open source: https://github.com/twitter https://github.com/twitter
Luyt 16y ago
This article demonstrates the beauty of taking away cruft until you only have the essential stuff left. I like Scala's succinct way of anonymous function notation.

53 points by DanielRibeiro 16y ago

Great article. I've been learning Scala for a while now as time allows, and have had similar experiences - the syntax is tricky at first, and much of the community focuses on CS esoterica that isn't familiar to me, but the major concepts are quite familiar, coming from Python, Scheme and JavaScript. I'm still looking forward to my moment of epiphany when I realize I've become vaguely competent with Scala.

sharednothing 16y ago
Scala is the C++ of the JVM based languages.
- runT1ME 16y ago
  I disagree completely. C was a well designed language that was later added onto haphazardly and you ended up with C++. The Scala language designers took a long time examining the shortcomings of java and other languages and ended up improving them, and at the same time coming up witha much smaller language specification. If anything, Java was the C++ and Scala is the C.
  - sharednothing 16y ago
    Please point out the "shortcomings" of Java. It has done quite well and provably "scales" from programming in the small to enterprise level. Even the required detour of multi-core resulted in the industry's gold standard of memory models: JMM. "Much smaller language specification" is a red herring. The issue is (practical) comprehension. "C was a well designed language that was later added onto haphazardly and you ended up with C++." http://www.amazon.com/Design-Evolution-C-Bjarne-Stroustrup/dp/0201543303 http://www.amazon.com/Design-Evolution-C-Bjarne-Stroustrup/d... I've read that book. (Have you?) Nothing "haphazard" about C++.
    - runT1ME 16y ago
      Shortcomings: Generics. Lack of closures. Please tell me how those are not shortcomings. >Even the required detour of multi-core resulted in the industry's gold standard of memory models: JMM. Which has absolutely zero to do with java the language. Did you forget what we were talking about in your second sentence?
      - sharednothing 16y ago
        We were discussing the "mistakes" made by the Java design team. JMM is one of their products. It is relevant to mention this fact as it supports the claim that the responsible parties have generally been also quite brilliant folks.
    - code_duck 16y ago
      I consider verbosity and lack of closures to be shortcomings of Java. Apparently, so did the author of the article here.
      - sharednothing 16y ago
        Its perfectly fine to note that Java can be verbose and that it does not fully support closures. It is perfectly fine to consider these "shortcomings". However, in context of OP's comment above, the strong suggestion made was that shorcoming == poorly designed. And that is a completely wrong assessment of Java and its designers. It is an exceptionally well thought out system and language. Again, the proof is in the pudding. Google and Oracle are not fighting over scala ...
        jimbokun 16y ago
        If issues such as verbosity and whether or not to have closures are not part of the language design process, then what is?
        sharednothing 16y ago

sharednothing 16y ago

"I was tired of writing code like this over and over again." This is getting tiring: public class MyGraphThingee extends Graph<Foo, Bar>

zoul 16y ago
Doesn’t this issue mostly go away when using a decent editor? I also found out that while I don’t particularly enjoy writing boilerplate code, it gives me a second to rest my brain, relax, think about the context etc. I think I like the resulting "rhythm changes".
- sharednothing 16y ago
  Judging by the upvotes, the comment was misread. The point was that it is trivial to extend the generalization to avoid verbose references and type names.
  - Luyt 16y ago
    Does Java have typedefs nowadays?
    - sharednothing 16y ago
      No. Don't need them. https://gist.github.com/755824 https://gist.github.com/755824
      - veemjeem 16y ago
        are you some kind of java troll?
        sharednothing 16y ago
        The day that CODE posted to HN to address gaps in knowledge of someone (OP) who complains about "typing all those brackets" gets downvotes, and an entirely ad-hominum comment (yours) contributing zip to the discussion gets upvotes is the day that I am indeed a "Java troll".

Create 16y ago

http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_45_0/libs/graph/doc/using_property_maps.html http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_45_0/libs/graph/doc/using_pr...

Homunculiheaded 16y ago

As someone who has spend a fair amount of time with Haskell, Scheme, Common Lisp etc, can someone give me some insight into what's really exciting about Scala? There seem to be a lot of people I respect using it, but most of the articles I've read are of the form "coming from Java, Scala is awesome!" which I haven't found particularly enticing. Every time I look at examples I don't really see anything that sticks out as particularly interesting. I really want to get excited about Scala, and would really appreciate any insight that would help me with this.

sorenbs 16y ago
Being able to do all your cool stuff in the usually boring enterprise world is the interesting part. If you don't need to integrate with container dit or java product dat there is no real need for scala.
z0r 16y ago
Just the pleasures of a powerful type system, inference, pattern matching, higher order functions... The usual good stuff, but on the JVM. I was paid to learn and program in it for a good five months earlier this year (everything ended up getting ported to python later...) and yes, it basically boils down to "coming from Java, Scala is awesome". If you have to build on top of the JVM and the Java ecosystem of libraries, it is a fine choice.
- krosaen 16y ago
  Which do you prefer? Python or Scala?
  - z0r 16y ago
    I enjoyed writing Scala more than I enjoy writing Python, but there are a few undeniable advantages that Python holds over Scala. The motivation to port from Scala to Python was to avoid the lengthy build process that had been slowing down development to a crawl. There may have been other ways to alleviate this, but by the time the port was completed, it took a good 15 - 20 minutes to get the build machine to compile and package the entire project so it could be deployed to production. At this time rapid fixes were critical. Also, the team as a whole prefers Python to Scala... I took pleasure in learning how to express my code in increasingly functional and compact ways, but my coworkers found struggling with the type system to be too much of a headache. In particular, there are rough edges when you are integrating Scala code with Scala types and data structures with Java code with Java types and data structures. In any case it will be easier to find programmers who write in Python than those who might write Scala. Scala gave me more personal pleasure to write in, but Python isn't bad either. I miss the type system and the many classes of errors it could help prevent at compile time, but I appreciate being able to change Python code and put it to the test immediately. The loss of expressiveness is probably made up in part by being forced to write code that is more easily read. I still hope I will be able to find a job writing in a functional language in the future...

mike4u2 16y ago

I did a few spare time projects with Scala, but does (did) anyone use it for commercial applications? If so, what kind?

harryh 16y ago
I decided to implement (nearly) all of foursquare.com in scala.
- codexon 16y ago
  Do you have any problems with GC pauses?
  - harryh 16y ago
    Yes, on occasion. We've combatted this in a couple of different ways: 1) Rewriting code to make fewer memory allocations or, in some cases, allocate memory for shorter periods of time (so it doesn't get promoted to a longer lived heap) 2) Garden variety GC tuning. Tune the various heap sizes, and GC algorithms used.
lylejohnson 16y ago
Aren't parts of Twitter in Scala now?
- DanielRibeiro 16y ago
  Yes. And lots of it is open source: https://github.com/twitter https://github.com/twitter

Luyt 16y ago

This article demonstrates the beauty of taking away cruft until you only have the essential stuff left. I like Scala's succinct way of anonymous function notation.