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You might like Scala and/or Kotlin. You listed Go, but Go’s type system is very weak, as is Go’s support for immutability, two problems that Scala and Kotlin do

by yashap 6y ago

You might like Scala and/or Kotlin. You listed Go, but Go’s type system is very weak, as is Go’s support for immutability, two problems that Scala and Kotlin don’t share.

jhardy54 6y ago
Personally I'm not very excited about making Java a hard dependency, or the fact that Scala can't be bootstrapped like most other languages. [0] [0]: https://bootstrappable.org https://bootstrappable.org
- yashap 6y ago
  Your 2nd point will stop being true very soon. Scala 3 will apparently be coming out sometime this fall (https://www.scala-lang.org/blog/2020/09/15/scala-3-the-community-powered-release.html https://www.scala-lang.org/blog/2020/09/15/scala-3-the-commu...), and the compiler will be the Dotty compiler. Dotty is bootstrapped (https://dotty.epfl.ch/blog/2019/05/23/15th-dotty-milestone-release.html https://dotty.epfl.ch/blog/2019/05/23/15th-dotty-milestone-r...). The first point is true, but IMO not a big deal for most applications. Scala native exists, but is very immature. Still, if you’re writing web services, data processing jobs, etc., I don’t see much of an issue with depending on the JVM. Definitely an issue with things like command line tools, or apps with super tight resource requirements, but that’s not the case for a tonne of software.
- vips7L 6y ago
  > Personally I'm not very excited about making Java a hard dependency Why be concerned about this? Either way you're making a hard dependency on some languages runtime, be it go, rust, or the jvm and I see it sticking around a lot longer than the others.
  - finder83 6y ago
    Maybe you're still tied to their standard library, but technically Rust doesn't have a runtime.
  - jhardy54 6y ago
    Many languages compile to assembly so that you can distribute them easily. Trying to send a friend a compiled tool is a billion times easier than asking them to install JDK / Node /etc.
the_duke 6y ago
I conceptually love Scala, but in practice it has a lot of downsides. * Tied to the JVM * You constantly have to use Java libraries. Which means you have to understand the Java ecosystem. Which increases complexity a lot, since that ecosystem is very mature but also often deeply layered, complex and full of historical baggage * It can be used in so many different ways. Nicer Java on one end. Almost Haskell on the other (with cats etc). * The flexible syntax and multi-model concept leads to very variable and non-coherent code styles and libraries Kotlin is also great, but the type system is less powerful. And the same JVM and Java library ecosystem concerns apply. ( I've jokingly heard "we don't talk about Native" multiple times... )
- yashap 6y ago
  Scala has been my primary professional language for the past 5 years, and I actually don’t have to use Java libs very often anymore, the pure Scala ecosystem has really caught up. When you do have to use them, they’re normally pretty easy to wrap. Totally agree with the plethora of ways to use it being an issue, though. “Classic Scala” and “let’s write Haskel is Scala” is a real split in the community, and a significant downside. Then you have Akka too, though at least that solves different problems (highly stateful AND highly concurrent, which is a pretty rare mix).
- lmm 6y ago
  > You constantly have to use Java libraries. Which means you have to understand the Java ecosystem. That's not so true in my experience. You have to reach for Java libraries in the same cases where you'd have to reach for C libraries in other languages. When you're using a Java library it's usually to do something specific (because using the big Java frameworks makes no sense), so the complex parts of the Java ecosystem don't really affect you.
- Scarbutt 6y ago
  You constantly have to use Java libraries. Which means you have to understand the Java ecosystem. Which increases complexity a lot, since that ecosystem is very mature but also often deeply layered, complex and full of historical baggage This problem is bigger in Clojure which has a smaller ecosystem than Scala and is why I don't pick it for writing "real world" applications in it.
sanderjd 6y ago
At one point in time, I thought Scala would be this, but it very much isn't. It feels bulky and lacking orthogonality to me, and it's tooling leaves a lot to be desired. (Note: this might be true of Rust too once it is as old as Scala.) Kotlin, though, yep, big fan.

by yashap 6y ago

You might like Scala and/or Kotlin. You listed Go, but Go’s type system is very weak, as is Go’s support for immutability, two problems that Scala and Kotlin don’t share.

jhardy54 6y ago

Personally I'm not very excited about making Java a hard dependency, or the fact that Scala can't be bootstrapped like most other languages. [0] [0]: https://bootstrappable.org https://bootstrappable.org

yashap 6y ago
Your 2nd point will stop being true very soon. Scala 3 will apparently be coming out sometime this fall (https://www.scala-lang.org/blog/2020/09/15/scala-3-the-community-powered-release.html https://www.scala-lang.org/blog/2020/09/15/scala-3-the-commu...), and the compiler will be the Dotty compiler. Dotty is bootstrapped (https://dotty.epfl.ch/blog/2019/05/23/15th-dotty-milestone-release.html https://dotty.epfl.ch/blog/2019/05/23/15th-dotty-milestone-r...). The first point is true, but IMO not a big deal for most applications. Scala native exists, but is very immature. Still, if you’re writing web services, data processing jobs, etc., I don’t see much of an issue with depending on the JVM. Definitely an issue with things like command line tools, or apps with super tight resource requirements, but that’s not the case for a tonne of software.
vips7L 6y ago
> Personally I'm not very excited about making Java a hard dependency Why be concerned about this? Either way you're making a hard dependency on some languages runtime, be it go, rust, or the jvm and I see it sticking around a lot longer than the others.
- finder83 6y ago
  Maybe you're still tied to their standard library, but technically Rust doesn't have a runtime.
- jhardy54 6y ago
  Many languages compile to assembly so that you can distribute them easily. Trying to send a friend a compiled tool is a billion times easier than asking them to install JDK / Node /etc.

the_duke 6y ago

I conceptually love Scala, but in practice it has a lot of downsides. * Tied to the JVM * You constantly have to use Java libraries. Which means you have to understand the Java ecosystem. Which increases complexity a lot, since that ecosystem is very mature but also often deeply layered, complex and full of historical baggage * It can be used in so many different ways. Nicer Java on one end. Almost Haskell on the other (with cats etc). * The flexible syntax and multi-model concept leads to very variable and non-coherent code styles and libraries Kotlin is also great, but the type system is less powerful. And the same JVM and Java library ecosystem concerns apply. ( I've jokingly heard "we don't talk about Native" multiple times... )

yashap 6y ago
Scala has been my primary professional language for the past 5 years, and I actually don’t have to use Java libs very often anymore, the pure Scala ecosystem has really caught up. When you do have to use them, they’re normally pretty easy to wrap. Totally agree with the plethora of ways to use it being an issue, though. “Classic Scala” and “let’s write Haskel is Scala” is a real split in the community, and a significant downside. Then you have Akka too, though at least that solves different problems (highly stateful AND highly concurrent, which is a pretty rare mix).
lmm 6y ago
> You constantly have to use Java libraries. Which means you have to understand the Java ecosystem. That's not so true in my experience. You have to reach for Java libraries in the same cases where you'd have to reach for C libraries in other languages. When you're using a Java library it's usually to do something specific (because using the big Java frameworks makes no sense), so the complex parts of the Java ecosystem don't really affect you.
Scarbutt 6y ago
You constantly have to use Java libraries. Which means you have to understand the Java ecosystem. Which increases complexity a lot, since that ecosystem is very mature but also often deeply layered, complex and full of historical baggage This problem is bigger in Clojure which has a smaller ecosystem than Scala and is why I don't pick it for writing "real world" applications in it.

sanderjd 6y ago

At one point in time, I thought Scala would be this, but it very much isn't. It feels bulky and lacking orthogonality to me, and it's tooling leaves a lot to be desired. (Note: this might be true of Rust too once it is as old as Scala.) Kotlin, though, yep, big fan.