4 ms·

it seems that the article ignores the trade off in cost between efficient code and development time.

• jimbokun 18y ago
  Scala tries to be pretty good at both. Java like speeds, with type-inferencing, first class functions, and a more flexible syntax to improve programming productivity.
  • deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
• ewjordan 18y ago
  Maybe the article ignores that trade off, but Twitter is not really a "startup" anymore, so they are correctly leaving the startup mindset behind and beginning to analyze where they are wasting resources and what they can do about it. If the expected total cost of rewriting and maintaining the codebase (over and above the cost of maintaining the current code, of course) to get an N% efficiency increase is less than the amount you will save on hardware, then it's worthwhile to do. For a relatively simple application, which Twitter is, I'm unsurprised that a re-write/port is a fairly low cost ordeal, and might provide enough savings over time to be worthwhile. I also take issue with the implicit claim that RoR is automatically more productive than Scala + Lift - Lift might be a little younger than Rails, true, but it's still a pretty solid piece of work, especially if you don't have to beat against the edges too much. And if you put some experienced Scala people up against similarly skilled Ruby folk in a "code race," I'd expect it to be a pretty fair match. This is not Java we're talking about, Scala can be extremely powerful in the hands of someone that knows what they're doing, and I imagine the Twitter guys have enough of those people that they'll do just fine.