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If you work in Java and like the syntax of Swift, then you should consider using Scala. Of course convincing coworkers and managers to use it can be a problem.

danpalmer 3y ago
Scala isn't a language I can use here, we have too much Java tooling and are conservative on new languages. I see your point about Scala, there are niceties to it in my (brief) experience, however it's not so much the syntax as it is the way that software tends to be written in Swift given the language features – I didn't find the same in Scala, it tended to be more complex than I wanted.
- lmm 3y ago
  > Scala isn't a language I can use here, we have too much Java tooling and are conservative on new languages. Most Java tooling works with Scala out of the box or at most needs a plugin added, and interop when calling Java from Scala is very smooth. Even if it wouldn't be acceptable for production code you might consider trying it for migration scripts, admin tools, testing etc. (though personally I'd stay away from ScalaTest et al) - that's how I got my start with Scala many years ago.
  - danpalmer 3y ago
    I'm at Google and we have a very consistent set of tooling across a large engineering org. I can certainly "play" with Scala, but realistically my exploratory coding is Python notebooks or SQL – neither of which Scala is going to help with, and anything else is going to need so much work to integrate with our frameworks and systems that it's unlikely to happen.
    - lmm 3y ago
      > realistically my exploratory coding is Python notebooks or SQL – neither of which Scala is going to help with FWIW Scala can actually be pretty useful in that space with Zeppelin - it's not quite as smooth as some of the Python-only notebooks out there, but sometimes being able to use your Java libraries in your notebooks makes up for a bit of clunkiness.
      - danpalmer 3y ago
        That's handy to know for the future. At the moment we have plenty of infrastructure built around Python notebooks, things like Colab, so not really feasible here I think.
Taikonerd 3y ago
How's the Scala community doing? I had the impression a couple years ago that they were losing momentum. But I also heard that Scala 3 fixed a lot of footguns that Scala developers hated, so maybe that gave them a second wind...
- kagakuninja 3y ago
  Scala has lost its hype status, and hype chasers will more likely use Go or Rust. Kotlin has encroached on the "better Java" category (and of course Java is now better). One of the great Scala success stories was Twitter, which has been eviscerated by an impulsive man-child, and their commitment to Scala is in doubt. The community is a bit worried over these developments, and there has been some sniping over the disruption caused by Scala 3 (mainly to projects that relied on macros, even though macros were marked as an experimental feature). IMO Scala is still the best language on the JVM, and last I checked there were plenty of jobs for experienced Scala devs. The foot guns weren't that severe, or at least I am used to them (in my opinion, Java coding has more foot guns due to nulls and mutable state everywhere, YMMV). Scala 3 was more incremental, than radical, and was massively less disruptive than you see with other attempts to clean up a language (Python 3, Perl 6, anything involving PHP) due to good design, careful planning and backwards compatibility options.

danpalmer 3y ago

Scala isn't a language I can use here, we have too much Java tooling and are conservative on new languages. I see your point about Scala, there are niceties to it in my (brief) experience, however it's not so much the syntax as it is the way that software tends to be written in Swift given the language features – I didn't find the same in Scala, it tended to be more complex than I wanted.

lmm 3y ago
> Scala isn't a language I can use here, we have too much Java tooling and are conservative on new languages. Most Java tooling works with Scala out of the box or at most needs a plugin added, and interop when calling Java from Scala is very smooth. Even if it wouldn't be acceptable for production code you might consider trying it for migration scripts, admin tools, testing etc. (though personally I'd stay away from ScalaTest et al) - that's how I got my start with Scala many years ago.
- danpalmer 3y ago
  I'm at Google and we have a very consistent set of tooling across a large engineering org. I can certainly "play" with Scala, but realistically my exploratory coding is Python notebooks or SQL – neither of which Scala is going to help with, and anything else is going to need so much work to integrate with our frameworks and systems that it's unlikely to happen.
  - lmm 3y ago
    > realistically my exploratory coding is Python notebooks or SQL – neither of which Scala is going to help with FWIW Scala can actually be pretty useful in that space with Zeppelin - it's not quite as smooth as some of the Python-only notebooks out there, but sometimes being able to use your Java libraries in your notebooks makes up for a bit of clunkiness.
    - danpalmer 3y ago
      That's handy to know for the future. At the moment we have plenty of infrastructure built around Python notebooks, things like Colab, so not really feasible here I think.

Taikonerd 3y ago

How's the Scala community doing? I had the impression a couple years ago that they were losing momentum. But I also heard that Scala 3 fixed a lot of footguns that Scala developers hated, so maybe that gave them a second wind...

kagakuninja 3y ago
Scala has lost its hype status, and hype chasers will more likely use Go or Rust. Kotlin has encroached on the "better Java" category (and of course Java is now better). One of the great Scala success stories was Twitter, which has been eviscerated by an impulsive man-child, and their commitment to Scala is in doubt. The community is a bit worried over these developments, and there has been some sniping over the disruption caused by Scala 3 (mainly to projects that relied on macros, even though macros were marked as an experimental feature). IMO Scala is still the best language on the JVM, and last I checked there were plenty of jobs for experienced Scala devs. The foot guns weren't that severe, or at least I am used to them (in my opinion, Java coding has more foot guns due to nulls and mutable state everywhere, YMMV). Scala 3 was more incremental, than radical, and was massively less disruptive than you see with other attempts to clean up a language (Python 3, Perl 6, anything involving PHP) due to good design, careful planning and backwards compatibility options.