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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 u

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.

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.