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I used Scala about a decade ago extensively and I’m still waiting for features I loved in it to be available in languages I have to use on a daily basis now. I

I used Scala about a decade ago extensively and I’m still waiting for features I loved in it to be available in languages I have to use on a daily basis now. I miss it a lot.

mpweiher 2y ago
Which features would those be?
- olivermuty 2y ago
  You can code the whole program with only types and no code? Albeit that is possible in typescript these days too tho.
  - tossandthrow 2y ago
    Type systems expressive enough to write actual programs is widespread these days. Typescript's typesystem is even Turing complete. Regardless, it is not very practical to use a type checker as your runtime.
    - linotype 2y ago
      Didn’t someone implement Doom in the Typescript type system?
- thinkharderdev 2y ago
  For me, the killer features were the metaprogramming abilities (both type and macro based). Not so much because I used them directly but because they allowed library authors to create extremely expressive libraries.
- sideeffffect 2y ago
  * Immutable-first * Immutable/persistent collections in standard library * Machinery to "modify" immutable deeply nested case classes/sealed traits. You have the copy method, you have lens libraries. Very easy and comfortable to use. * Expression oriented. if/try/etc expression can be bound to a variable * less characters to write the same idea/program, while not losing readability * better tooling: Scalafmt is ubiquitously used, supported in IntelliJ and is very good. Scalafix (a linter which can also fix some issues automatically) is used a little bit less, but is also good. * build tools: while I don't like sbt, Mill is a so much better build tool than Maven or, even worse, Gradle. Then there is also scala-cli, which is not a build tool, but can work like it, if you have a simple, single-module project (i.e. no sub-projects/sub-modules).
  - gf000 2y ago
    Also, the collections API is the best out of any language I have used!
  - linotype 2y ago
    Thank you, this captures most of these. I’d also add the excellent libraries from Twitter like Algebird and ability to do a lot of data processing with types at scale using Spark.

I used Scala about a decade ago extensively and I’m still waiting for features I loved in it to be available in languages I have to use on a daily basis now. I miss it a lot.

mpweiher 2y ago

Which features would those be?

olivermuty 2y ago
You can code the whole program with only types and no code? Albeit that is possible in typescript these days too tho.
- tossandthrow 2y ago
  Type systems expressive enough to write actual programs is widespread these days. Typescript's typesystem is even Turing complete. Regardless, it is not very practical to use a type checker as your runtime.
  - linotype 2y ago
    Didn’t someone implement Doom in the Typescript type system?
thinkharderdev 2y ago
For me, the killer features were the metaprogramming abilities (both type and macro based). Not so much because I used them directly but because they allowed library authors to create extremely expressive libraries.
sideeffffect 2y ago
* Immutable-first * Immutable/persistent collections in standard library * Machinery to "modify" immutable deeply nested case classes/sealed traits. You have the copy method, you have lens libraries. Very easy and comfortable to use. * Expression oriented. if/try/etc expression can be bound to a variable * less characters to write the same idea/program, while not losing readability * better tooling: Scalafmt is ubiquitously used, supported in IntelliJ and is very good. Scalafix (a linter which can also fix some issues automatically) is used a little bit less, but is also good. * build tools: while I don't like sbt, Mill is a so much better build tool than Maven or, even worse, Gradle. Then there is also scala-cli, which is not a build tool, but can work like it, if you have a simple, single-module project (i.e. no sub-projects/sub-modules).
- gf000 2y ago
  Also, the collections API is the best out of any language I have used!
- linotype 2y ago
  Thank you, this captures most of these. I’d also add the excellent libraries from Twitter like Algebird and ability to do a lot of data processing with types at scale using Spark.