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The "super complex" and "introduces breaking changes all the time" comments are unsubstantiated FUD. Scala has evolved a lot in the last few years, particularly

The "super complex" and "introduces breaking changes all the time" comments are unsubstantiated FUD. Scala has evolved a lot in the last few years, particularly in the area of binary compatibility. It's a wonderful language and I can only recommend others try it. This from a programmer very happy with Scala.

vips7L 4y ago
And this is from a programmer that is not happy with Scala. Every single time I've upgraded the compiler there is a breaking change. They don't strictly follow semver. Most recently upgrading from the 2.11 to 2.13 compiler they made breaking serial version uid changes (I know don't use java serialization, but that wasn't my decision) and none of it was noted in the release notes. When it comes to super complex just look at any of the type signatures of the standard library for collections: def ++[B >: A, That](that: GenTraversableOnce[B])(implicit bf: CanBuildFrom[IndexedSeq[A], B, That]): That Comparing this to Java it is "super complex". IntelliJ can't even figure out the types sometimes.
- suresk 4y ago
  And then when a dependency of one of your dependencies is broken agains the latest version. I know some of this has been cleaned up, but it is one of the main reasons I no longer use Scala - I have a rule about how long I'm willing to spend on build issues vs actually writing code, and Scala was always on the wrong side of that. re: Complexity - At least the signatures for the core collections have been cleaned up a fair amount. That said, the richness of the type system and the prevalence of operator overloading always made it feel like a language you could be really productive in once you knew the language and the current codebase really well, but was really hard to just read through unfamiliar code and know what is going on.
  - kagakuninja 4y ago
    > And then when a dependency of one of your dependencies is broken agains the latest version How is this any worse than Java? My most vexing dependency-hell issues have involved breaking API changes to Hamcrest matchers and Apache Http Client; more recently Jackson-databind. All of those are Java libraries, brought in via transitive dependencies, usually from Java libraries.
- ebruchez 4y ago
  I don't know about the serialization issue but I don't doubt you had it. > def ++[B >: A, That](that: GenTraversableOnce[B])(implicit bf: CanBuildFrom[IndexedSeq[A], B, That]): That I should point out that this is the Scala 2.12 and and earlier signature. `CanBuildFrom` is gone from the Scala collections since Scala 2.13. In fact, the collections were redesigned for Scala 2.13 primarily to simplify method signatures, following community feedback.
- kaba0 4y ago
  Scala 3 came out not too long ago and it fixed plenty of shortcomings. I do recommend giving it one another try. Also, the reason why Scala’s collection has such complex signatures is because it is hands down the best collection lib out of any language I have used.
  - vips7L 4y ago
    Nah the language is dead to me. And for petty reasons I don’t like significant white space. I only use it now because of work.
    - kaba0 4y ago
      It still supports the older brace-style as well, doesn’t it?
      - vips7L 4y ago
        Right and I don’t want to have to deal with half the community being split. Or half my coworkers doing it one way. These are just things I don’t want to deal with. I said my reasons were petty! But they’re my reasons.
      - ebruchez 4y ago
        Absolutely.

vips7L 4y ago

And this is from a programmer that is not happy with Scala. Every single time I've upgraded the compiler there is a breaking change. They don't strictly follow semver. Most recently upgrading from the 2.11 to 2.13 compiler they made breaking serial version uid changes (I know don't use java serialization, but that wasn't my decision) and none of it was noted in the release notes. When it comes to super complex just look at any of the type signatures of the standard library for collections: def ++[B >: A, That](that: GenTraversableOnce[B])(implicit bf: CanBuildFrom[IndexedSeq[A], B, That]): That Comparing this to Java it is "super complex". IntelliJ can't even figure out the types sometimes.

suresk 4y ago
And then when a dependency of one of your dependencies is broken agains the latest version. I know some of this has been cleaned up, but it is one of the main reasons I no longer use Scala - I have a rule about how long I'm willing to spend on build issues vs actually writing code, and Scala was always on the wrong side of that. re: Complexity - At least the signatures for the core collections have been cleaned up a fair amount. That said, the richness of the type system and the prevalence of operator overloading always made it feel like a language you could be really productive in once you knew the language and the current codebase really well, but was really hard to just read through unfamiliar code and know what is going on.
- kagakuninja 4y ago
  > And then when a dependency of one of your dependencies is broken agains the latest version How is this any worse than Java? My most vexing dependency-hell issues have involved breaking API changes to Hamcrest matchers and Apache Http Client; more recently Jackson-databind. All of those are Java libraries, brought in via transitive dependencies, usually from Java libraries.
ebruchez 4y ago
I don't know about the serialization issue but I don't doubt you had it. > def ++[B >: A, That](that: GenTraversableOnce[B])(implicit bf: CanBuildFrom[IndexedSeq[A], B, That]): That I should point out that this is the Scala 2.12 and and earlier signature. `CanBuildFrom` is gone from the Scala collections since Scala 2.13. In fact, the collections were redesigned for Scala 2.13 primarily to simplify method signatures, following community feedback.
kaba0 4y ago
Scala 3 came out not too long ago and it fixed plenty of shortcomings. I do recommend giving it one another try. Also, the reason why Scala’s collection has such complex signatures is because it is hands down the best collection lib out of any language I have used.
- vips7L 4y ago
  Nah the language is dead to me. And for petty reasons I don’t like significant white space. I only use it now because of work.
  - kaba0 4y ago
    It still supports the older brace-style as well, doesn’t it?
    - vips7L 4y ago
      Right and I don’t want to have to deal with half the community being split. Or half my coworkers doing it one way. These are just things I don’t want to deal with. I said my reasons were petty! But they’re my reasons.
    - ebruchez 4y ago
      Absolutely.