4 ms·

That's a pretty terrible defense of scala. Sounds more like a "I hate some random scala projects for made up reasons". How does scalaz have "colossal snobbism

by asdasf 13y ago

That's a pretty terrible defense of scala. Sounds more like a "I hate some random scala projects for made up reasons". How does scalaz have "colossal snobbism" exactly? Because it contains stuff you haven't learned?

octo_t 13y ago
The community around Scalaz is notoriously hostile (I've not experienced it myself however)/
virtualwhys 13y ago
Agreed, doesn't paint Scala in a good light despite claiming to defend it. As for Scalaz elitism, the canonical example would be the T-hole himself, _ Morris (who has more or less been expelled from the main Scala user groups). I think the general POV the OP is trying to convey is that Scalaz is an incomprehensible cluster fuck of symbols to everyone but those in the know; in other words, the learning curve is steep and historically the response to beginner questions has been something along the lines of, "go read this paper" a la Haskell. SBT suffers a similar problem but that's, IMO, more due to lack of IDE support for the project/ build than anything else (i.e. it's difficult to discover [for me] the library without being able to click through method calls and experientially explore the code [Scala docs only get me so far]). In other news the last milestone of Scala 2.11 was just released; 2014 should be a good year for Scala on many fronts (faster compilations and improved IDE support particularly)
- asdasf 13y ago
  >I think the general POV the OP is trying to convey is that Scalaz is an incomprehensible cluster fuck of symbols to everyone but those in the know Right, I get that there are lots of scala people who are very anti-intellectual and are vehemently opposed to learning anything. But what I don't get is how "if I don't learn this stuff, I don't understand it" is "snobbism" on the part of people providing the library you didn't learn. >and historically the response to beginner questions has been something along the lines of, "go read this paper" a la Haskell. I have not seen that response in either scalaz or haskell. It sounds an awful lot like the common strawman used to dismiss haskell as "academic" from people who have never bothered to try it. Practical experience with haskell in particular has been that people are ridiculously accommodating and helpful.
- rtpg 13y ago
  > historically the response to beginner questions has been something along the lines of, "go read this paper" a la Haskell. There's a lot of tutorials in Haskell that are papers, but if you go to #haskell or ask on stack overflow, the answer to questions are rarely "go read this paper", at least in my experience (even for some pretty deep type-level programming stuff).
- uaygsfdbzf 13y ago
  I have to agree on that statement regarding Mr. Morris. He is an intelligent individual, and a competent programmer, but unfortunately he has demonstrated himself to be quite rude and unaccepting toward those who do not share his exact viewpoints. Just take a look at his postings on Twitter to see what I mean. The advice that he offers to people who are new to functional programming is quite difficult to comprehend, and he harshly derides people when they use the "wrong" approach to a problem. I am concerned that some of the snarky things that he has said in the past has impacted the community. However, I feel sorry for him, as he has been in great pain for quite a long time and I do hope that he gets better. It is easy to lose self-control when you are under stress like that.

by asdasf 13y ago

octo_t 13y ago

The community around Scalaz is notoriously hostile (I've not experienced it myself however)/

virtualwhys 13y ago

Agreed, doesn't paint Scala in a good light despite claiming to defend it. As for Scalaz elitism, the canonical example would be the T-hole himself, _ Morris (who has more or less been expelled from the main Scala user groups). I think the general POV the OP is trying to convey is that Scalaz is an incomprehensible cluster fuck of symbols to everyone but those in the know; in other words, the learning curve is steep and historically the response to beginner questions has been something along the lines of, "go read this paper" a la Haskell. SBT suffers a similar problem but that's, IMO, more due to lack of IDE support for the project/ build than anything else (i.e. it's difficult to discover [for me] the library without being able to click through method calls and experientially explore the code [Scala docs only get me so far]). In other news the last milestone of Scala 2.11 was just released; 2014 should be a good year for Scala on many fronts (faster compilations and improved IDE support particularly)

asdasf 13y ago
>I think the general POV the OP is trying to convey is that Scalaz is an incomprehensible cluster fuck of symbols to everyone but those in the know Right, I get that there are lots of scala people who are very anti-intellectual and are vehemently opposed to learning anything. But what I don't get is how "if I don't learn this stuff, I don't understand it" is "snobbism" on the part of people providing the library you didn't learn. >and historically the response to beginner questions has been something along the lines of, "go read this paper" a la Haskell. I have not seen that response in either scalaz or haskell. It sounds an awful lot like the common strawman used to dismiss haskell as "academic" from people who have never bothered to try it. Practical experience with haskell in particular has been that people are ridiculously accommodating and helpful.
rtpg 13y ago
> historically the response to beginner questions has been something along the lines of, "go read this paper" a la Haskell. There's a lot of tutorials in Haskell that are papers, but if you go to #haskell or ask on stack overflow, the answer to questions are rarely "go read this paper", at least in my experience (even for some pretty deep type-level programming stuff).
uaygsfdbzf 13y ago
I have to agree on that statement regarding Mr. Morris. He is an intelligent individual, and a competent programmer, but unfortunately he has demonstrated himself to be quite rude and unaccepting toward those who do not share his exact viewpoints. Just take a look at his postings on Twitter to see what I mean. The advice that he offers to people who are new to functional programming is quite difficult to comprehend, and he harshly derides people when they use the "wrong" approach to a problem. I am concerned that some of the snarky things that he has said in the past has impacted the community. However, I feel sorry for him, as he has been in great pain for quite a long time and I do hope that he gets better. It is easy to lose self-control when you are under stress like that.