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Kotlin is indeed very Crystal-like, and I enjoy both languages, but I really miss union types in Kotlin, as well as deeper type inference. For example, in Cryst

by ezrast 6y ago

Kotlin is indeed very Crystal-like, and I enjoy both languages, but I really miss union types in Kotlin, as well as deeper type inference. For example, in Crystal you can write def foo_then_bar(a, b) a.foo b.bar end and it will just work for any two types that implement `foo` and `bar`, respectively. This isn't something I do often - I like the clarity that type-annotated parameters give - but it's a really nice feature to have available in the 2% of cases where I want it. Then there's all the ecosystem stuff - Kotlin makes me do extra work to target native, and has little bits of weirdness inherited from Java all around the edges. None of it's deal-breaking, but it is friction.

The_rationalist 6y ago
Thanks for the example, that's interesting. Note that Kotlin has union types through this compiler plugin: https://github.com/arrow-kt/arrow-meta/issues/570 https://github.com/arrow-kt/arrow-meta/issues/570 However it is experimental and shouldn't yet be used in production. Btw sealed classes take care of many uses of union types. What kind of extra work is needed? I'd say that graal native is transparant for any library that doesn't do weird use of reflection but it's true that many libraries do abuse of reflection.
- ezrast 6y ago
  Having to install and set up third-party pre- and post-processors is the extra work I mean. I'm sure it's not super difficult, but it's also not very accessible to those like me who aren't already familiar with Java tools. The documentation seems to assume I'm slightly competent with Maven or Gradle, etc. I did try Kotlin/native hoping it would make it easier to remain in blissful ignorance of the JVM ecosystem, but as of a year or two ago it had significant holes in the standard library (most notably no file abstractions other than thin bindings to libc) and pretty atrocious compile times (something like 10s for hello world, and 30+ for a couple thousand lines of code).

by ezrast 6y ago

The_rationalist 6y ago

Thanks for the example, that's interesting. Note that Kotlin has union types through this compiler plugin: https://github.com/arrow-kt/arrow-meta/issues/570 https://github.com/arrow-kt/arrow-meta/issues/570 However it is experimental and shouldn't yet be used in production. Btw sealed classes take care of many uses of union types. What kind of extra work is needed? I'd say that graal native is transparant for any library that doesn't do weird use of reflection but it's true that many libraries do abuse of reflection.

ezrast 6y ago
Having to install and set up third-party pre- and post-processors is the extra work I mean. I'm sure it's not super difficult, but it's also not very accessible to those like me who aren't already familiar with Java tools. The documentation seems to assume I'm slightly competent with Maven or Gradle, etc. I did try Kotlin/native hoping it would make it easier to remain in blissful ignorance of the JVM ecosystem, but as of a year or two ago it had significant holes in the standard library (most notably no file abstractions other than thin bindings to libc) and pretty atrocious compile times (something like 10s for hello world, and 30+ for a couple thousand lines of code).