4 ms·

yeah, the polyglot approach is total in it's coverage, but I haven't experienced how polyglotism works on a team or set of teams. If you look at Odersky's pres

by platz 13y ago

yeah, the polyglot approach is total in it's coverage, but I haven't experienced how polyglotism works on a team or set of teams. If you look at Odersky's presentation "The Trouble with Types" [1] at Strage Loop 2013, he describes Scala as a "type it to the max language" like haskell, ocaml or F#. He seems to be aware of the complexity problem and proposes a few ways to reduce some of the type complexity. [1] http://www.infoq.com/presentations/data-types-issues http://www.infoq.com/presentations/data-types-issues

pron 13y ago
Yes, I have watched that talk, and Martin Odersky is clearly aware of Scala's problems. If he were to come up with a new language, I would certainly give it a try, but I think it's too late for Scala. BTW, to reiterate some of what's been said in other comments, I am certainly not opposed to using Scala in "Ruby style" projects (though Clojure would be a better option for those, too, IMO); I do, however, think that it's a very bad alternative for large Java projects.
- trailfox 13y ago
  In our experience Scala has been a superb alternative for large Java projects. Practical experience vs. your opinion/speculation?
  - pron 13y ago
    Call it educated speculation based on years of experience with similar decisions. How big is the team? How many years of maintenance have you had on those projects? I remember C++ looked pretty awesome for a while. It was certainly great for one-man projects or small team. Then the problems started piling up. Thing is, C++ didn't have any good alternatives (maybe now we'll have Rust); Scala does.
    - pkolaczk 13y ago
      Scala is not C++. Scala has much better features to keep complex pieces of code separated from the simple pieces. Also C++ design philosophy was totally different from that of Scala's - C++ values performance over everything else, while Scala's top priorities are correctness and type-safety.
      - laureny 13y ago
        > Scala is not C++. That was not the point. The comparison is that Scala is to Java what C++ is to C. Powerful and flexible but with a lot of baggage that ends up making it impractical.
        trailfox 13y ago
        > The comparison is that Scala is to Java what C++ is to C. Which is pure opinion/speculation.
        pkolaczk 13y ago
        Nope. C++ is almost a superset of C (there are a few minor differences, but most C programs are correct C++ programs). Even the most basic Scala program is not a valid Java program. They are just two different languages targetting the same platform. If making analogies, a much closer analogy would be to say Scala is to Java what D or Rust is to C++. As of lots of baggage - can you elaborate? Only null comes to my mind and it is never an issue - it was left because Scala is practical. Sure, there are some limitations imposed by the target platform like lack of TCO, lack of efficient suport for tuples/value-types, or RTTI for generics being not powerful enough, but Java-the-language has nothing to do with it. The same limitations apply to Kotlin and Ceylon.
    - trailfox 13y ago
      I think you're confusing Scala and C++.
- virtualwhys 13y ago
  He is actually exploring the development of a new language; see the DOT (Dependent Object Types) paper: http://www.cs.uwm.edu/~boyland/fool2012/papers/fool2012_submission_3.pdf http://www.cs.uwm.edu/~boyland/fool2012/papers/fool2012_subm... It will be based on Scala, and similar enough that, if things work out, we could have Scala.next without a Python 2 to 3 glacial transition. Of course, Scala 2.1.x branch is making great strides as is, and AFAIK, the DOT language is still a research project, so not likely that we'll be seeing Scala.next anytime soon.

by platz 13y ago

pron 13y ago

Yes, I have watched that talk, and Martin Odersky is clearly aware of Scala's problems. If he were to come up with a new language, I would certainly give it a try, but I think it's too late for Scala. BTW, to reiterate some of what's been said in other comments, I am certainly not opposed to using Scala in "Ruby style" projects (though Clojure would be a better option for those, too, IMO); I do, however, think that it's a very bad alternative for large Java projects.

trailfox 13y ago
In our experience Scala has been a superb alternative for large Java projects. Practical experience vs. your opinion/speculation?
- pron 13y ago
  Call it educated speculation based on years of experience with similar decisions. How big is the team? How many years of maintenance have you had on those projects? I remember C++ looked pretty awesome for a while. It was certainly great for one-man projects or small team. Then the problems started piling up. Thing is, C++ didn't have any good alternatives (maybe now we'll have Rust); Scala does.
  - pkolaczk 13y ago
    Scala is not C++. Scala has much better features to keep complex pieces of code separated from the simple pieces. Also C++ design philosophy was totally different from that of Scala's - C++ values performance over everything else, while Scala's top priorities are correctness and type-safety.
    - laureny 13y ago
      > Scala is not C++. That was not the point. The comparison is that Scala is to Java what C++ is to C. Powerful and flexible but with a lot of baggage that ends up making it impractical.
      - trailfox 13y ago
        > The comparison is that Scala is to Java what C++ is to C. Which is pure opinion/speculation.
      - pkolaczk 13y ago
        Nope. C++ is almost a superset of C (there are a few minor differences, but most C programs are correct C++ programs). Even the most basic Scala program is not a valid Java program. They are just two different languages targetting the same platform. If making analogies, a much closer analogy would be to say Scala is to Java what D or Rust is to C++. As of lots of baggage - can you elaborate? Only null comes to my mind and it is never an issue - it was left because Scala is practical. Sure, there are some limitations imposed by the target platform like lack of TCO, lack of efficient suport for tuples/value-types, or RTTI for generics being not powerful enough, but Java-the-language has nothing to do with it. The same limitations apply to Kotlin and Ceylon.
  - trailfox 13y ago
    I think you're confusing Scala and C++.
virtualwhys 13y ago
He is actually exploring the development of a new language; see the DOT (Dependent Object Types) paper: http://www.cs.uwm.edu/~boyland/fool2012/papers/fool2012_submission_3.pdf http://www.cs.uwm.edu/~boyland/fool2012/papers/fool2012_subm... It will be based on Scala, and similar enough that, if things work out, we could have Scala.next without a Python 2 to 3 glacial transition. Of course, Scala 2.1.x branch is making great strides as is, and AFAIK, the DOT language is still a research project, so not likely that we'll be seeing Scala.next anytime soon.