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I have a similar language preference. Do you think a RESTful TypeScript backend is more productive than a Scala alternative?

by davnn 4y ago

vosper 4y ago
I can't compare to Scala, but unless you know you need an API for a web frontend then I would take a look at tRPC or other "zero API" systems (Blitz is another one, but I'm a little unclear on where they are in their pivot). It's a little hard to describe how magical it feels to actually use. It completely removes needing to think about an API. You don't think about endpoints, about (de)serialization, about the mechanics of fetching, or how arguments are passed. You just call you functions by name from the front-end. All your types are preserved so that if you change the signature of your backend function Typescript will catch it everywhere on front-end. If you use react-hook-form then you can export the zod validators that you wrote for the backend and import them to the frontend, and now your client-side code is using the exact same validator as your backend does. Change your server side validation and now your client-side form won't compile and you'll know exactly why. Honestly it feels like the missing link in fullstack dev to me. Typescript brought the types and the compiler, and tRPC makes it feel like your entire back and front-end are one system.
- davnn 4y ago
  Very interesting, I didn‘t know about tRPC yet. I remember in the early days of ScalaJS there were similar ambitions, but I believe it never really caught on. I will definitely give it a go, thanks.
yashap 4y ago
Yeah, I think even when engineers are fully ramped up, a well written TS backend is a bit more productive than a well written Scala one. They’re actually decently similar languages, both are expressive languages with expressive type systems and an OOP/FP mix, but I’d say TS has a bit less boilerplate/overhead, the libraries tend to be simpler to learn/use, and it compiles faster. The biggest efficiency gains, though, are: - Much faster training/ramp up time for new devs with TS vs Scala - You can use the same language on the FE and BE, makes it easier for individual devs to do full stack work The main downsides of TS vs Scala are: - Scala is faster and more efficient, performance wise. Have to spend more on TS services to serve the same amount of traffic, and if you have heavy computation that’s parallelizeable, Scala is wayyyyy better at that - As you get into more niche use cases, you just can’t beat the JVM library ecosystem, there are high quality libraries for EVERYTHING. The Node ecosystem is very good too, but not as good as the JVM ecosystem - TS/Node stack traces are useless compared to Scala/JVM stack traces Overall, I’ve got ~7 years of professional Scala experience, love the language, but if I was starting a startup today, I’d go full stack TypeScript.
- davnn 4y ago
  It appears to be a pretty fantastic time for full-stack development and solo founders. For me, the context switch between client and server was always difficult using a Scala/TypeScript setup (startup). As you said, unless you rely on some niche technology only available on the JVM, it‘s probably more productive to go full stack TypeScript. For perf-heavy workloads I would probably pick Rust instead of Scala.

I have a similar language preference. Do you think a RESTful TypeScript backend is more productive than a Scala alternative?

by davnn 4y ago

I have a similar language preference. Do you think a RESTful TypeScript backend is more productive than a Scala alternative?

vosper 4y ago

I can't compare to Scala, but unless you know you need an API for a web frontend then I would take a look at tRPC or other "zero API" systems (Blitz is another one, but I'm a little unclear on where they are in their pivot). It's a little hard to describe how magical it feels to actually use. It completely removes needing to think about an API. You don't think about endpoints, about (de)serialization, about the mechanics of fetching, or how arguments are passed. You just call you functions by name from the front-end. All your types are preserved so that if you change the signature of your backend function Typescript will catch it everywhere on front-end. If you use react-hook-form then you can export the zod validators that you wrote for the backend and import them to the frontend, and now your client-side code is using the exact same validator as your backend does. Change your server side validation and now your client-side form won't compile and you'll know exactly why. Honestly it feels like the missing link in fullstack dev to me. Typescript brought the types and the compiler, and tRPC makes it feel like your entire back and front-end are one system.

davnn 4y ago
Very interesting, I didn‘t know about tRPC yet. I remember in the early days of ScalaJS there were similar ambitions, but I believe it never really caught on. I will definitely give it a go, thanks.

yashap 4y ago

Yeah, I think even when engineers are fully ramped up, a well written TS backend is a bit more productive than a well written Scala one. They’re actually decently similar languages, both are expressive languages with expressive type systems and an OOP/FP mix, but I’d say TS has a bit less boilerplate/overhead, the libraries tend to be simpler to learn/use, and it compiles faster. The biggest efficiency gains, though, are: - Much faster training/ramp up time for new devs with TS vs Scala - You can use the same language on the FE and BE, makes it easier for individual devs to do full stack work The main downsides of TS vs Scala are: - Scala is faster and more efficient, performance wise. Have to spend more on TS services to serve the same amount of traffic, and if you have heavy computation that’s parallelizeable, Scala is wayyyyy better at that - As you get into more niche use cases, you just can’t beat the JVM library ecosystem, there are high quality libraries for EVERYTHING. The Node ecosystem is very good too, but not as good as the JVM ecosystem - TS/Node stack traces are useless compared to Scala/JVM stack traces Overall, I’ve got ~7 years of professional Scala experience, love the language, but if I was starting a startup today, I’d go full stack TypeScript.

davnn 4y ago
It appears to be a pretty fantastic time for full-stack development and solo founders. For me, the context switch between client and server was always difficult using a Scala/TypeScript setup (startup). As you said, unless you rely on some niche technology only available on the JVM, it‘s probably more productive to go full stack TypeScript. For perf-heavy workloads I would probably pick Rust instead of Scala.